Righteous Theodore, Bishop of Edessa

Saint Theodore, Bishop of Edessa (d. 848), was born into a pious family in the Syrian city of Edessa. Orphaned early, at the age of twenty he distributed his inheritance to the poor and withdrew to Jerusalem, where he was tonsured a monk at the Lavra of Saint Sabas. After twelve years of monastic obedience and a further twenty-four years of strict seclusion and prayer, at about sixty years of age he was elevated, at the direction of the Patriarch of Jerusalem, to the episcopal see of Edessa. As bishop he zealously combated the heresies of Manichaeism, Nestorianism, and Monophysitism, guiding his flock in the Orthodox faith. According to tradition, he journeyed to Baghdad, where he healed the gravely ill emir by giving him water mixed with earth from the Holy Sepulchre; the emir was subsequently baptized with the name John, together with his attendants. Forewarned in a vision of his approaching death, Theodore set the affairs of his diocese in order and returned to the monastery of Saint Sabas, where he peacefully reposed on July 9, 848. His Life was written by his nephew Basil, Bishop of Amasea.