Venerable Thaddeus the Confessor (+818)

The Venerable Thaddeus the Confessor, a disciple of Theodore the Studite, suffered for the veneration of icons in the reign of Leo V (813–820). In the time of the iconoclasts’ dominance he was brought before the tribunal. The heretics, who mocked the blessed one, laid an icon of the Saviour on the ground, and then fell upon the Lord’s chosen one and by force made him set his foot on the icon. After this the judge said: “You have trampled the icon of Christ; now join us.” But Saint Thaddeus answered courageously: I venerate the holy icon of the Saviour and kiss it with love; setting my foot on it against my will will not be counted to me as sin; and he anathematised the lawlessness of the iconoclasts. For this the Lord’s chosen one was cruelly tortured, and then dragged along the ground and thrown, more dead than alive, outside the city wall. A Christian took the saint to his home. The blessed Thaddeus lived three more days, and then committed his soul to the Lord.