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Between 370 and 372, the Gothic King Athanaric, who had settled in Dacia and was at war with Emperor Valens, began a great persecution of Christians in his territory. The ''Act of Martyrdom'' of St. Sava states that in 372, on the third day of [[Pascha]], the soldiers of Athanaric under the direction of an official called Atarid captured both Ss. Sava and Sansala. They bound and tortured them in an attempt to make them sacrifice to idols and to eat of those sacrifices. St. Sava was condemned to death by drowning after courageously resisting these tortures and was thrown into the Buzău river with a heavy piece of wood tied around his neck. St. Sansala also resisted the Goths' tortures but was released.
Athanaric's soldiers had wanted to release the martyr, but he urged them that they should follow out their orders, saying the following. 'Fulfill the command you were given. Beyond the river I see what you cannot; I see those who wait to take my soul and bring it to the place of God's glory.' So, he was martyred on [[April 12]], 372, on the fifth day after Pascha, at the age of 38. His [[relics]] were taken by St. Sansala and hidden by the Christians until they could be sent for safety to the Roman Empire. Here they were received by [[Bishop]] [[Ascholius of Thessalonica]].
St. [[Basil the Great]] requested of the ruler of Scythia Minor, Junius Soranus, that he should send him the relics of saints and so the Dacian priests sent the relics of St. Sava to him in Caesaria, Cappadocia, in 373 or 374 accompanied by a letter, the ''Epistle of the Church of God in Gothia to the Church of God located in Cappadocia and to all the Local Churches of the Holy Universal Church''. This letter is the oldest known writing to be composed on Romanian soil and was written in Greek, possibly by St. [[Vetranion of Tomis]].
