Venerable Theodore the Confessor and His Brother Theophanes, the Inscribed (+c. 840)
The Venerable Theodore the Confessor and his brother Theophanes, the Inscribed, were born in Jerusalem into a Christian family. Theodore was the elder. From childhood he shunned youthful amusements and loved to attend church services. Together with his younger brother Theophanes (commemorated 11 October) the saint was given to a presbyter in the Lavra of Sabbas the Sanctified to be brought up. Afterwards the brothers were tonsured monks, and some time later ordained hieromonks.
After the iconoclast Emperor Leo V the Armenian (813–820) overthrew the pious King Michael I (811–813) and began to patronise the heresy of the iconoclasts, the Patriarch of Jerusalem sent the saints to Constantinople to defend the Orthodox faith. On arriving in the Byzantine capital, Theodore and Theophanes defeated the lawless Leo V in debate. Enraged by this, the emperor ordered the brothers to be mercilessly beaten, and then exiled them both.
By God’s will the lawless Leo soon met his end at the hands of his courtiers. The new emperor, Michael II (820–829), who was entirely indifferent to all spiritual questions, released all those imprisoned for the faith, among them Theodore and Theophanes.
In 829 the heretic Theophilus (829–842) ascended the throne and renewed the persecution of the venerators of icons. The holy brothers were exiled again. Some time later Theodore and Theophanes were recalled. This time they were cruelly beaten: with red-hot needles supposedly defamatory inscriptions were scratched on their faces, twelve lines of verse in which the confessors were described as “vessels of superstition”. That is why the brothers were called “the Inscribed”. Before the torture the eparch of the city asked Theodore to communicate just once with the iconoclasts, and promised him freedom for this; but the blessed martyr answered: “That is as if you said to me: ‘We will only cut off your head, and then go wherever you please.’” After the torture the holy brothers were shut up in the prison of the town of Apamea, where Saint Theodore died around 840. Saint Theophanes lived to see the condemnation and complete defeat of the iconoclast heresy, and reposed in the rank of Bishop of Nicaea. To the Venerable Theophanes belong many writings in defence of Orthodoxy. The holy relics of the Venerable Martyr Theodore were translated with honour to the city of Chalcedon, where miraculous healings took place from them.
