Saint Theodosia the Holy Martyr of Constantinople
Celebration date: 29/05
The Holy Martyr Theodosia came from Constantinople and was born to rich and pious parents during the reign of Emperor Theodosius of Adramyttinos. At the age of seven, after being orphaned by her father, she entered a monastery, where after a while she became a nun. After the death of her mother, having sold and distributed among the poor her possessions and thus freed herself from earthly cares, she devoted herself with greater zeal to the acquisition of perfection and solitary virtues, practicing in the monastery near the “Dark Well” and it was called “Asparon sternen”.
When Leo Isaurus ascended the throne (717 – 741 AD), a fierce persecution was unleashed against iconophiles and holy images, and the patriarch Germanos, a solid bastion of Orthodoxy, was expelled and replaced by the iconoclast Anastasios. At the beginning of the persecution, the removal and destruction of the image of Christ, which was on the Bronze Gate, was ordered.
Then Theodosia, the head of nuns and other women, rushed and knocked down from the movable ladder the spathario who went up to destroy the icon, and with stones and wood they attacked the Patriarchate. Faced with this situation, Patriarch Anastasios was forced to leave the Patriarchate. The military force that intervened killed some of the women and arrested others, including Theodosia. And of those arrested, some were released, others were imprisoned or sent into exile. As for Theodosia, after they abused her, they took her to the site of Vos and slaughtered her, after piercing her neck with a ram’s horn (730 AD). Her holy relic was gathered around and buried in Dexiokratous monastery, and she performed many miracles for the faithful, who came with faith and reverence.
