Страдание святых мучеников Феодоры и Дидима

During the reign of the emperors Diocletian 3470 and Maximian 3471, during the administration of the city of Alexandria 3472 by Prince Eustratius, a royal order was issued commanding Christians to either make sacrifices to the gods or accept torture. Prince Eustratius, having sat down at the trial seat in Alexandria, ordered Theodora, a Christian maiden who had recently been taken and imprisoned, to be brought to his trial. When she was brought in, the judge asked her: -Are you free or a slave? “I told you,” answered Theodora, “that I am a Christian; Christ, having come into the world, freed me from sin; I was born of glorious parents in this vain world. The prince, looking at the mayor named Lukiy, asked him: - Do you know this girl? - Yes, I know that she comes from a noble and honest family. Then the prince said, turning to Theodora: “If you, girl, come from a noble and honest family, then why haven’t you gotten married yet?” – I renounced marriage for the sake of Christ, for our Lord Jesus Christ, having come into the world and being born of the Most Pure Ever-Virgin Mary, freed us from corruption and promised to give us eternal life. And so, believing in Him, I decided, for the sake of love for Him, to keep my virginity pure until my death. “The kings ordered us to force all girls who want to preserve their purity to worship our gods; if you do not want to worship the gods, you will be given over to harlotry. – You probably understand that God looks first of all at the will of the heart. Being the Knower of the Heart, He knows all our thoughts and accepts our very intentions as action. My God knows my intention - to keep my virginity pure; therefore, if you command, as you boast, to give me to the fornicators, then this will not be adultery for my body, but will be violence and suffering for me; and if you cut off my head, or my arm, or my leg, or forcibly deflower me, through this you will make me not a harlot, but a martyr. But know that my Lord and God is able to keep my virginity pure if He wishes. “Do not intend to dishonor your nobility, do not indulge yourself in mockery and laughter, being the daughter of honest and glorious parents, as they testify about you here.” “I glorify Christ and my God, who gave me nobility and purity, and I hope that He will keep His dove intact. “Why are you deceived by believing in a man crucified as in God?” Will He deliver you from the hands that would take you to desecration? Don’t think that once you enter a whorehouse, you will come out clean. – I believe that Christ and my God, who suffered under Pontius Pilate, will deliver me from the unclean hands of fornicators and will keep His servant pure. After this, the judge gave Theodora three days to think. But she expressed her readiness to suffer, saying that after three days, just as after more days, she would have no other intention and desire than to die for Christ her God. After this, the saint was taken to prison and three days later again presented for interrogation. When the hegemon realized that she would invariably remain in the holy Christian faith, he ordered her to be taken to the fornication. Being led here, the saint prayed to the Lord, saying: - Christ God, who tamed the dumb beasts in the face of Your holy martyr Thekla, (see her life under September 24) tame the most ferocious verbal beasts, fornicators, intending to harm the purity of my body. You, God, who delivered Susanna from the hands of the adulterous elders (Dan. 13), save me, Your servant, from the same fornicators; do not allow the church, which is dedicated only to You alone, to be desecrated. You, who drove away from me the invisible enemies who tried to secretly steal my virgin treasure, drive away these obvious rapists who intend to plunder my wealth from me. Come to my defense, O Lord my God, and by Your almighty power make sure that I leave here clean, so that these wicked hands will not touch me, so that I will glorify Your holy name. While the saint was praying like this, the nasty fornicators stood near that house and argued among themselves who should go in first to the girl. At this time, a certain young man, strong in body, dressed like a warrior, approached them, drove them away from that house, and entered the girl, and no one prevented him from going to her. It was one of the Christians, named Didim, who, according to God’s dispensation, deliberately entered that house in the guise of a warrior, as if to sin, but in fact came here to protect the girl. When Saint Theodora saw him, she was very surprised. But blessed Didymus said to her: - Don't be afraid, sister! The one who looks like a wolf to you from the outside is actually a lamb and your brother in the holy faith. I have come to save you, the servant and dove of my God. Let’s change clothes - you put on mine, and I’ll put on yours, so that you can take away your virginity from here intact, covered with my clothes. In your clothes, I will go to the feat of martyrdom and show myself as a real warrior of Christ God. The holy maiden deigned to do such an act, realizing that Didymus was sent to her from God. Having changed clothes, they put on - the girl in a man's suit, and the boy in a girl's suit. Then the young man said to the girl: - When leaving here, cover your face as if you were ashamed, because everyone leaves here with shame; then no one will recognize you. The girl did so, came out in military attire with her face covered; She quickly went to her home, praising God for His provision for her, for He had thus delivered her from fornicators, like a bird from a snare, or like a sheep from wolves. When Theodora came out of the fornication, a certain young man entered it, possessed by a lustful passion; Seeing a man instead of a girl, he was very surprised and exclaimed: -What is this? How did the girl turn into a man? I have heard that Christ once, as Christians say, turned water into wine (John 2:1-11), but now I see that He turned the female sex into male. And coming out of the whorehouse, he said to his friends: “Let’s run away from here quickly, let’s run away so that Christ doesn’t turn us into women!” And they ran and reported everything to Judge Eustratius. Eustratius ordered Didymus to be brought to the court and asked him: – I am a slave of Jesus Christ; my name is Didim. – Why do we see women’s clothes, not men’s ones, on you? “I took them from Theodora, but I gave mine to her, so that she would not be recognized by the fornicators and would escape their hands.” -Who ordered you to do this? – My God, Jesus Christ, taught me to do this; He sent to save His sheep from the teeth of the beast, safe and sound. -Where is Theodora? Tell us where she is if you don't want us to torture you. “I truly don’t know where she is now; I only know about her that she is an honest and faithful servant of Christ, that she confesses the most holy name of Christ our God; therefore Christ loved her and kept her pure as His bride. The prince, filled with anger, ordered the head of Didim to be cut off with a sword, and ordered his body to be thrown into the fire. Saint Didymus, having learned about his death sentence, was filled with joy and cried out to God, saying this: “Blessed are You, God, Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who did not despise my prayer and fulfilled my desire, for You kept Your servant, Theodora, pure and undamaged, and You honor me with the crown of martyrdom!” And the saint was taken outside the city to be beheaded. When Saint Theodora learned about this, she followed the holy martyr Didymos and, coming to the place of beheading, began to argue with him about the martyr’s crown, saying: “Although you saved me from desecration, I did not ask you to save me from death.” I was the first to be taken, the first to be tortured and judged; give me a martyr's death; let me be truncated, but you go wherever you want; there will be a great reward for you from the Lord for the fact that you have kept my virginity pure; I do not want you to die for me and anticipate my crown; I don’t want to be the culprit of your death; I myself will die, I myself will repay my debt, for I have a head; let her be truncated for the name of Christ; I have blood; let it be shed for our Lord; I did not want and do not want to be desecrated, but I wanted and now I want to be tortured; do not take away from me the crown with which I began to weave before you. But if you are jealous of my martyrdom, then let me go under the sword first, you can be a martyr of Christ after me; I want you to remain after me, and not I after you, because they cannot take away your purity, but they can deprive me of my innocence. If you brought me clean from fornication, then allow me and Christ to appear clean. Saint Didymus said to her: - Beloved sister! Our Lord, who has already kept you undefiled once, can always preserve your purity; Do not prevent me, condemned to death, from dying; I will die for Christ and wash away my sins with my blood. While they were bickering with each other lovingly, it was ordered that they both be beheaded with a sword; The holy martyr Theodora was the first to bow her head under the sword, and then the holy martyr Didimus also bowed her head under the sword. Their bodies were thrown into the fire. Thus they received crowns of victory from Christ our God, to whom glory, honor and worship are given forever with the Father and the Holy Spirit. Amen. Diocletian ruled the eastern half of the Roman Empire from 284 to 305. Maximian ruled the western half of the Roman Empire from 284 to 305. Alexandria is a famous city founded by Alexander the Great ca. 333 in Egypt on the shores of the Mediterranean Sea; was famous before Christ as a center of science and trade; from the beginning 4th century it became one of the most important centers of Christian life and the residence of the patriarch. The death of the holy martyrs Theodora and Didymos followed in 303 or 304. You might be interested in: