Theodore of Amasea
🗓️ Feb 17th
The basic legend recounts that Theodore's cohort was sent to Pontus for winter quarters. Christianity was still illegal and Galerius enforced his co-emperor Diocletian's Great Persecution. When the soldiers of Theodore's cohort were obliged to perform pagan sacrifice at Amasea in Pontus (modern Amasya, Turkey), he refused and recounted a confession of faith in the divinity of Jesus Christ. Rather than immediately execute him, the judges delayed their sentence to allow him to change his mind. Theodore then burned the city's temple, whereupon he was again arrested, tortured, and martyred by immolation. This early tradition is now cited as Theodore Tiron/the Recruit, with Theodore the General/of Heraclea being a later embellishment.
Mandatory Fun:
The Golden Legend, Vol. VI. See below.
Butler’s Lives of the Saints, Vol. II, under Feb. 7th. See below
Theodore Tiron explains the difference between the many Saint Theodores on his Wikipedia page
Caxton (1475)
Theodore is said of theos, that is as much to say as God, and of das, that is to say, give. And of rus, ruris, that is, a field. And thus Theodorus is as much to say as a field given of God. For he gave him to God and renounced the field of the chivalry of the emperor.
Of S. Theodore.
Theodore suffered death under Diocletian and Maximian in the city of Marine. And when the provost said to him that he should do sacrifice and return to his first chivalry, Theodore answered: I serve my God and his son Jesu Christ. To whom the provost said: Then thy God hath a son? And Theodore said: Yea, certainly. To whom the provost said: Of whom may we know him? And Theodore said: Forsooth ye may well know him and go to him. And then there was term given to S. Theodore for to do sacrifice unto the idols. And he entered into the temple of Mars by night and put fire in it under, and burnt all the temple. And then he was accused of a man that had seen him, and was enclosed in the prison for to die there for hunger, and then our Lord appeared to him and said: Theodore my servant, have thou good hope, for I am with thee. Then came to him a great company of men clad in white, the door being closed and began to sing with him. And when the keepers saw that they were afeard and fled. Then he was taken out and warned to do sacrifice. He said: If thou burn my flesh by fire and consumest it by divers torments, I shall never reny my God as long as my spirit is in me. Then he was hanged on a tree by commandment of the emperor, and cruelly his body was rent and torn with hooks of iron, that his bare ribs appeared. Then the provost demanded of him: Theodore, wilt thou be with us or with thy God Christ? And Theodore answered: I have been with my Jesu Christ, and am, and shall be. Then the provost commanded that he should be burnt in a fire. In which fire he gave up his spirit, but the body abode therein without hurt about the year of our Lord two hundred and seventy-seven. And all the people were replenished with right sweet odour, and a voice was heard which said: Come to me, my friend, and enter into the joy of thy Lord, and many of the people saw the heaven open.
Butler (1866)
AMONG those holy martyrs whom the Greeks honour with the title of Megalomartyrs (i. e. great martyrs) as St. George, St. Pantaleon, &c. four are distinguished by them above the rest as principal patrons, namely: St. Theodorus of Heraclea, surnamed Stratilates, (i. e. general of the army) St. Theodorus of Amasea, surnamed Tyro, St. Procopius, and St. Demetrius. The first was general of the forces of Licinius, and governor of the country of the Mariandyni, who occupied part of Bythynia, Pontus, and Paphlagonia, whose capital at that time was Heraclea of Pontus, though originally a city of Greeks, being founded by a colony from Megara. This was the place of our saint’s residence, and here he glorified God by martyrdom, being beheaded for his faith by an order of the emperor Licinius, the 7th of February, on a Saturday, in 319, as the Greek Menæa and Menologies all agree: for the Greek Acts of his martyrdom, under the name of Augarus, are of no authority. It appears from a Novella of the emperor Manuel Comnenus, and from Balsamon’s Scholia on the Nomocanon of Photius, 1 that the Greeks kept as semi-festivals, that is, as holydays till noon, both the 7th of February, which was the day of his martyrdom, and that of the translation of his relics, the 8th of June, when they were conveyed soon after his death, according to his own appointment, to Euchaia, or Euchaitæ, where was the burial place of his ancestors, a day’s journey from Amasea, the capital of all Pontus. This town became so famous for his shrine, that the name of Theodoropolis was given it; and out of devotion to this saint, pilgrims resorted thither from all parts of the east, as appears from the Spiritual Meadow, 2 Zonaras 3 and Cedrenus. 4 The two latter historians relate, that the emperor John I. surnamed Zemisces, about the year 970, ascribed a great victory which he gained over the Saracens, to the patronage of this martyr: and in thanksgiving rebuilt in a stately manner the church where his relics were deposited at Euchaitæ. 5 The republic of Venice has a singular veneration for the memory of St. Theodorus of Heraclea, who as Bernard Justiniani proves 6 was titular patron of the church of St. Mark in that city, before the body of that evangelist was translated into it from another part of the city. A famous statue of this St. Theodorus is placed upon one of the two fine pillars which stand in the square of St. Mark. The relics of this glorious martyr are honoured in the magnificent church of St. Saviour at Venice, whither they were brought by Mark Dandolo in 1260, from Constantinople; James Dandolo having sent them to that capital from Mesembria, an archiepiscopal maritime town in Romania, or the coast of Thrace, when in 1256 he scoured the Euxine sea with a fleet of gallies of the republic, as the Venetian historians inform us. 7 See archbishop Falconius, Not. in Tabulis Cappon. and Jos. Assemani in Calend. Univ. on the 8th and 17th of February, and the 8th of June; 8 also Lubin, Not. in Martyr. Rom. p. 283. and the Greek Synaxary. 1
Note 1. Tit. 7. c. 1. Thomassin, l. 1. c. 7. n. 3.
Note 2. Prat. Spir. c. 180.
Note 3. Zonar. 3. parte Annal.
Note 4. Ced in Joanne Zemisce Imp.
Note 5. See Baronius in his notes on the Martyrology (ad 9 Nov.) who justly censures those who confound this saint with St. Theodorus Tyro, as Fabricius has since done. (t. 9. Bibl. Græcæ, p. 147.) Yet himself falsely places Tyro’s shrine at Euchaitæ, and ascribes to him these pilgrimages and miracles which certainly belong to St. Theodoras Stratilates, or of Heraclea.
Note 6. De Rebus Venetis, l. 6.
Note 7. Sansovin, l. 13. Hist. &c.
Note 8. The modern Greeks have transferred his feast from the 7th to the 8th of February.
