Hierarch

Hierarch Theodore Catholicos

Theodore, "Catholicos of Georgia" — a figure that cannot be reliably identified; likely contamination with Great Martyr Theodore Tyro or another unrelated saint of the same name.

The card "Theodore, Catholicos of Georgia" cannot be reliably identified historically. Georgian Church history records only two Catholicoi named Theodore — Theodore I (c. 685–689, mentioned in the chronicle Moktsevai Kartlisai as one of the "married catholicoi," atypical for a canonized hierarch-saint) and Theodore II (1187–1204, a contemporary of Queen Tamar, known purely as an administrative-historical figure with no record of church glorification). Neither appears in any known list of Georgian saints or the Synaxis of Georgian Saints. Moreover, the office of Catholicos of Georgia did not exist before the mid-5th century (under St. Vakhtang Gorgasali), so the card's earlier "4th century" dating cannot in principle apply to a "Catholicos of Georgia" — suggesting probable data contamination, possibly with Great Martyr Theodore Tyro (martyred 306, a widely known saint of the same name and roughly comparable era). Given the lack of reliable information, life years and feast day are left blank rather than invented.

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