Страдание святой преподобномученицы Феодосии

The holy bride of Christ Theodosia was born in Constantinople from rich, honest, pious and virtuous parents. Initially they were barren for many years. Lamenting this, they prayed and fasted a lot, running both day and night to the churches of God, and generously distributing alms to the poor. Once, when they were in the church built in honor of the holy martyr Anastasia at the all-night vigil, the mother of St. Theodosia prayed more fervently than before for the resolution of her infertility; when she dozed off a little, Saint Anastasia the Martyr appeared to her and said: “Do not be sad, woman, for you will conceive and give birth.” When she woke up, she came to great joy and told her husband about the vision. Then her husband said to her: - The Lord lives! If He resolves our barrenness and if we give birth to a son or a daughter, we will bring it as a gift to our Master, Christ God. After some time, his wife actually conceived and gave birth to this holy girl, who was called Theodosia, that is, “given from God,” for she was given by God. Then they enlightened the baby with holy baptism. After forty days after birth, the mother took her daughter in her arms and carried her to the church of St. Anastasia, with joyful tears giving thanks to God and the holy martyr, promising to consecrate her daughter to the rank of monasticism, so that she would be numbered among the virgins and brides of Christ (it should be noted that at that church there was also a monastery for girls who dedicated themselves to serving God). Having accepted God's blessing, the mother returned to her home and began to raise the child promised to God with great attention, teaching Theodosia to read Divine books and the fear of God and kindling the fire of Divine love in her heart. When Theodosia was seven years old from the time of her birth, her father died; then the mother, taking the young woman, took her to the monastery of St. Anastasia and gave her to be tonsured into the holy rank of Angels. Three years later, Theodosia’s mother also died, leaving her entire estate to her nun daughter. But Theodosia, having reached perfect age, being filled with reason and love for God, did not want to accept the property left to her from her mother, but gave it to God, to whom she sacrificed herself: calling a goldsmith to her, she gave him a sufficient amount of gold and silver to forge three icons: Christ the Savior, the Most Holy Theotokos and the holy martyr Anastasia. These icons were three cubits in size, 3511. Blessed Theodosia placed them in the church, but distributed the rest of her property to the poor, the poor, orphans and widows, and she herself, in monastic poverty, continued to serve the Lord day and night, enriched by God with spiritual wealth. Arming herself with prayer armor against an invisible adversary, she mortified with fasting deeds the flesh that fought against the spirit, defeated the ethereal enemy, trampled on the head of the hellish serpent and overthrew the proud Belial 3512 with humility, meekness, godly love, purity, reverence, obedience and other monastic virtues. Once, when the saint was praying at night, the devil approached her and said: - Now you are taking up arms against me: in that case, I will take up arms against you, and not only against you, but against all Christians, for I have found such a person through whom I will be able to raise a war against the Church; I will turn many away from worshiping the icon of Christ; many will follow me and do my will. Saint Theodosia, making the sign of the cross, said: - Cursed be you, devil, enemy of Christians! May all your wiles be destroyed and perish by the power of Christ my God! And the devil disappeared. The Venerable Theodosia, having overshadowed herself with the honorable sign of the cross, began to sing the psalm of David: “Let God arise, and let His enemies be scattered, and let those who hate Him flee from before His face” (Ps. 67:2). Saint Theodosia conveyed this terrible vision and all the proud words of the devil to her abbess and asked her: – Where can the misfortune that the enemy promises to bring upon Christians come from? The abbess answered her: - My daughter! The Apostle testifies: “And all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution” (2 Tim. 3:12). For the flock of Christ has always been confused by wicked people, who think wrongly, who deceive everyone and those who are deceived themselves; These wicked people are the tools of the devil. In the same way, at the present time, the devil will bring confusion and persecution upon the Church of God. “And you continue in what you have been taught and what has been entrusted to you, knowing by whom you were taught. Moreover, from childhood you have known the sacred scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus” (2 Tim. 3:13-15). After some time, his governor, named Leo, called Conon, an Isaurian by birth, rebelled against the faithful king Theodosius, nicknamed Adramitin 3513. Having taken away royal power from Theodosius, Leo himself reigned in 3515. During the first time of his reign, he showed himself to be pious, but soon turned into a new Belshazzar 3516, desecrating church shrines and not worshiping Christ the Most High God and His honorable icon. And he breathed into the Church the poison of the adders of the soul-harming Manichaean heresy; in addition, this beast-like man, roaring as if with the voice of a lion, uttered heretical blasphemous words against the holy icons, calling them idols, and calling those who worshiped them idolaters. This wicked king issued an order, which commanded that the worship of icons be destroyed throughout his entire kingdom. At this time, the throne of Constantinople was occupied by Saint Germanus. He, along with other Orthodox bishops, was very opposed to the tsar and did not accept his heretical order, which commanded him to renounce the veneration of icons. Herman said to this detractor: “After our Lord and Savior was incarnated from the venerable blood of the Most Holy Theotokos and fulfilled all the Divine plans for our salvation, all service to idols was destroyed and all idol images were consigned to fire. More than seven hundred years have passed since the Apostles labored and proclaimed the saving teaching of Christ to the world. During these seven hundred years there have been very many righteous and reverend fathers, and not one of them has blasphemed the holy icons, much less not one of them has heard of the ungodly wisdom that you bring into the Church, rejecting the veneration of the holy icons, which has been due to shrines since ancient times. For the Holy Church has adopted the custom of venerating honest icons from ancient times, starting with that miraculous image that the Savior Himself sent on a towel to Abgar, the prince of Edessa. Then the bleeding woman, who was healed by touching the hem of Christ’s robe, after the Lord’s Ascension into heaven, made a likeness of Jesus Christ out of stone. Then the holy evangelist Luke painted an icon of the Most Pure Virgin Mary; from that time on, the pious custom of painting holy icons and decorating the churches of God and Christian houses with them began. So the six Ecumenical Councils of 3517 that preceded us did not blaspheme this custom, but, on the contrary, commanded to worship the images of saints, and not to reject them. Know, O Tsar, that for the sake of the holy icons I am ready not only to endure any evil, but I am ready to accept death itself, for the icon of Christ bears the name of that very Christ who was incarnate from the Immaculate Virgin Mary and lived on earth with people. Every pious Christian must be ready to die both for the name of Christ and for His honest icons, because the one who dishonors an icon also dishonors the very one who is depicted on this icon.” Hearing this, the king was filled with anger and rage; roaring like a lion, he began to rage with great cruelty, persecuting believers and putting to death all those who opposed him. First of all, he sent his soldiers with weapons and ordered them to drive out Saint Herman from the patriarchate with dishonor and beatings; Instead of Herman, Leo installed the false patriarch Anastasius 3518, a heretic and like-minded person. Then Leo ordered all Divine books and writings of God-wise teachers to be put on fire. It should be noted that at the Church of Hagia Sophia there was a library with about three hundred thousand books; This library had twelve schools and the same number of wise teachers; the superior of these teachers was the wise gymnasium leader, who accepted this honor from the king and the patriarch. All these teachers resisted the godless order of the wicked emperor; Therefore, the lawless tormentor, together with his soldiers, surrounded that library and all the schools with teachers and students, set it on fire from all sides and burned it, so that none of those who were there were saved from the fire, and not a single book survived the fire. At this time, the entire city of Constantinople plunged into great sorrow and sadness; everyone cried and sighed; some regretted the unjust expulsion of His Holiness Patriarch Herman, others about the burning of so many books and the death of wise teachers, others about the great dishonor inflicted on icons, for icons were crushed everywhere, thrown into swamps and burned at the stake. The newly installed heretical patriarch, Anastasius, who stood in the holy place as an abomination of desolation (Matthew 24:15), was very pleasing to the king, since he assisted him in every possible way in his iconoclastic heresy. This false patriarch soon threw out the honest icons from the great church and ordered the same to be done in all other churches. In Constantinople there were gates called “copper”; they were built during the time of the great Constantine and led to the royal chambers. Above this gate there was a copper image of the Savior, which hung here for four hundred years or even more. That wicked patriarch intended to remove and set on fire this venerable image, for which purpose he sent soldiers with axes to do the wicked deed. When the chief of those warriors, the rank of spafarius, placed a ladder at the gate, began to climb it with an ax in his hands and was already preparing to begin his godless task, some pious women who happened to be passing there saw him; the nuns also saw him, among whom was the Monk Theodosia; kindled with zeal for the icon of Christ and prompted by this blessed Theodosia, who was more zealous than all of them for honest icons and filled with Divine courage and boldness, those nuns ran to the stairs and overturned it to the ground; At the same time, they also overthrew that warrior, who, having fallen from a height, was very injured. They dragged him along the ground and beat him until he died; then they hastily went to Patriarch Anastasius and began to blaspheme his wickedness; they reproached him as a wolf, a predator, a heretic and an enemy of the Church of Christ; then they started throwing stones at him. Anastasius, filled with shame and fearing that a nationwide rebellion might arise against him, hurried to the king and informed him of the dishonor inflicted on him by those women, and also announced the murder of the spafarius at the copper gates. The king, filled with anger and rage, immediately sent his soldiers with drawn swords and ordered them to avenge the dishonor of the patriarch and the death of the spathari. And those holy women were flogged for the zeal they showed in their piety; The blessed nun Theodosia, as being more noble in origin and professing piety with great boldness and as the culprit of everything that happened, the king ordered to be taken and imprisoned, inflicting one hundred blows on her daily. The saint was thus tormented for seven days. On the eighth day, the tormentor ordered the saint to be taken throughout the city and beaten without mercy. When the saint was brought to a place called the “Oxen Market” (animals were sold and killed here) 3519, it happened that one warrior accompanying the saint accidentally stepped on a large goat’s horn and injured his leg with it. Angry, he took that horn and began to beat the holy martyr on the head without mercy, then hit the saint in the throat with that horn and pierced it; and immediately the holy venerable martyr maiden Theodosia, the sacred bride of Christ, gave up her honest soul into the hands of her immortal Bridegroom and departed to His heavenly palace, crowned with the double crown of both virginity and martyrdom 3520. Her long-suffering body, thrown to the ground, was taken by Christians with reverence and buried in a special place. From the honest relics of Saint Theodosia, healings were given to the sick for the glory of Christ, our God, glorified with the Father and the Holy Spirit, now and forever. Amen 3521. You have comprehended virtue favorably as a martyr, Christ's friend was once pure, and the house of the Holy Spirit is beloved: you have not put to shame the enemy of the struggling human race, having suffered well, and you have flogged Copronymus Theodosius with the sword of faith: and you have reposed in the heavenly palace, rejoicing. For those who always honor you with faith, ask for great mercy. With your labors you achieved an easy belly, but with the blood of Copronyma you strangled the martyr, the foul enemy of the Church of Christ, O all-blessed Theodosius: and you rejoice with those on high who cover your memory. A cubit was equal to 8–10 vershoks. Belial or, more correctly, Belial - translated from Hebrew means: worthless, wicked, evil. The Apostle Paul assigns this name to the devil, the source of all evil (2 Cor. 6:15). Theodosius III Adramitin reigned from 715 to 716. Isauria is an Asia Minor region bordered on the east by Lycaonia, on the north by Phrygia, on the west by Pisidia and on the south by Cilicia. Leo III the Isaurian reigned from 716 to 741. Belshazzar, one of the descendants of Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, is known as a wicked and depraved man (see Dan. 5: 1–4, 22–23). He desecrated the sacred vessels of the Jews, captured by Nebuchadnezzar from Jerusalem (Dan.5:3). The VII Ecumenical Council had not yet been convened at this time. Anastasius served as patriarch from 730 to 753. According to some, this place was called “Volovy” because there was a furnace here, in the shape of an ox, in which criminals were burned. The death of the holy martyr Theodosia followed in the year 730. Information about miracles from the relics of the holy martyr has been preserved, recorded by the great logothete (keeper of the patriarchal seal) Constantine, who lived in the 13th century. One young man from Phrygia, who had lost the use of his legs, received complete healing after being brought to the tomb of the holy martyr; another young man, who fell from his horse and lost his mind, was instantly healed after he was brought to the tomb of Saint Theodosia and anointed here with oil from the lamp; Konstantin logothete himself says about himself that he suffered greatly from a disease in his legs, which the best doctors could not cure; but, having resorted to the holy martyr, he received complete healing. Constantine the logothete in his legend notes that the miracles performed by Saint Theodosius are innumerable. The venerable relics of the holy martyr were placed in the monastery of Diocratis or Dexiokratis (the name of the patrician who built the monastery church), not far from the Golden Horn in Constantinople. You might be interested in: