Anthimus of Nicomedia

Who was Anthimus of Nicomedia?

Anthimus of Nicomedia, was the bishop of Nicomedia in Bithynia, where he was beheaded during a persecution of Christians, traditionally placed under Diocletian, in which "rivers of blood" flowed.

Nicomedia was Diocletian's chief place of residence and was half-Christian, the palace itself being filled with Christians. Christian sources memorialized the "20,000 Martyrs of Nicomedia". The main Christian church of Nicomedia was destroyed on February 23, 303, and the First Edict was published on the following day. The massacres transpired in the Christian communities of Bithynia after altars were set up in the marketplaces, in which no transactions were permitted until a token sacrifice to the gods and the daemon of the Augustus had been performed.

Anthimus took refuge in the small village of Omana, where, when the soldiers of Maximinus were sent to find him, he welcomed them and fed them before he revealed who he was. The detail referring to Maximinus suggests that two persecutions have been conflated.