The Holy Hieromartyr Theodore, Archbishop of Alexandria
Life
Theodore was an archbishop of Alexandria in Egypt during the early seventh century who is commemorated as a hieromartyr, a martyr of episcopal rank. The synaxarion remembers him as a forceful preacher whose proclamation of the faith provoked the hostility of the city's pagans, at whose hands he suffered death for Christ. His feast is kept on December 3.
Precise biographical detail has not been preserved; the sources themselves acknowledge that historical records do not give exact particulars of his life, and they differ on the years of his episcopate.
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Episcopate and Preaching
Theodore was born in Alexandria, a city long associated with Christian martyrs and confessors going back to the tradition of Saint Mark the Evangelist. He served as archbishop of the see in the opening years of the seventh century. The accounts describe him as a vigorous preacher, powerful in word and active in the life of the Church, whose preaching stirred the anger of the pagans of Alexandria.
The surviving sources date his tenure variously to the years between roughly 606 and 609. Some synaxarion entries identify him with Patriarch Theodore I of Alexandria, though the records are not consistent on the exact dates of his rule.
Martyrdom
According to the synaxarion, the pagans of Alexandria seized Theodore during one of his sermons. They beat and mocked him, placed a crown of thorns upon his head, and led him through the city. They then brought him to the seacoast and cast him from a cliff into the sea, but, as the account relates, the wind and waves carried him back to dry land.
The city prefect ordered him tortured, yet the torturers are said to have heard no word from him but his prayer to the Lord. He was finally beheaded with a sword, a death the tradition likens to that of the Apostle Paul.
