The main Christian church of Nicomedia was destroyed on 23 February 303; the First Edict was published on the following day.

[3] 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.

At the request of members of his congregation, Anthimus took refuge in the small village of Omana, where he provided aid to survivors[4] and sent letters exhorting the Christians to stand firm.

Amazed at his kindness, the soldiers promised him to tell Maximinus that they had not found him, but Anthimus returned with them, and converted and baptized them along the way.

[6] Philip Schaff and Henry Wace note that a fragmentary letter preserved in the Chronicon Paschale, as written in prison by the presbyter Lucian of Antioch awaiting death, mentions Anthimus, bishop of Nicomedia, as having just suffered martyrdom.