April 18

Forced to choose between baptism and death, thousands of men, women and children were sentenced to capital punishment. As a last gesture of disdain, their bodies were piled together with the corpses of animals and burned outside the city walls.

THE CHURCHES REMEMBER...

WESTERN CATHOLICS:
Galdinus (d. 1176), bishop (Ambrosian calendar)

COPTS AND ETHIOPIANS (10 barmudah/miyazya):
Isaac of Scetis (4th cent.), monk (Coptic Church)

LUTHERANS:
Apollonius (d. ca. 180), martyr in Egypt 

MARONITES:
Cosmas (8th cent.), bishop of Chalcedon; Thais the Penitent (4th cent.)

ORTHODOX CHRISTIANS AND GREEK CATHOLICS:
John, the disciple of Gregory the Decapolite (9th cent.), monk
Translation of the relics of Job (1625), patriarch of Moscow (Russian Church)