The Holy Martyr Leonidas and his companions are a group of martyrs commemorated together on April 16 who, by tradition, suffered at Corinth in the year 258 for confessing Christ. The cluster comprises Leonidas together with the women martyrs Chariessa, Nike (also rendered Nika or Victoria), Galina, Kalista, Nunechia, Basilissa, Theodora, and Irene. They are venerated as a single commemoration in the Greek lands of the Peloponnese.
According to one tradition preserved in the Greek sources, Leonidas was a teacher of the Church in Troezen of the Peloponnese and was brought to Corinth for trial before a governor named Venousto; this account places the events during the reign of the emperor Decius (249-251) and on Holy Saturday, while the synaxarion followed in the in-repo record dates the martyrdom to 258. The sources differ on these particulars, and the figure of Leonidas is presented in the Greek tradition as the leader of the company.
The distinguishing feature of the account is its manner of death. The martyrs were condemned to be drowned in the Gulf of Corinth, but according to tradition they did not sink: they walked upon the water as if on dry land, singing hymns. The persecutors then overtook them in a ship, tied stones around their necks, and cast them into the depths of the sea, where they received their crowns.
