Today we remember the miracle of Saint Theodore the Recruit and the boiled wheat. Fifty years after Saint Theodore’s martyrdom, Emperor Julian the Apostate (361-363), devised a plan to corrupt the Christians during the first week of Great Lent. He knew that Christians purify themselves through fasting, especially during this week (which is why it is known as Clean Week). Therefore, he ordered the Polemarch (military leader) of Constantinople to go secretly and sprinkle all the food in the marketplace with the blood of animals which had been offered in sacrifice to idols. Saint Theodore appeared to Archbishop Eudoxios in a dream, telling him to assemble all the Christians on Monday morning and tell them that they must not buy any food from the marketplace; instead they were to boil some kollyva and to eat it with some honey during that week. The hierarch asked Saint Theodore what he meant by kollyva. He replied, “Kollyva is what we call boiled wheat in Euchaita.” Thus the scheme of the idol-worshipping emperor was thwarted and the pious people were preserved undefiled during Clean Week.
Ever since the middle of the fifth century, the Orthodox Church has honored the holy Great Martyr Theodore the Recruit on the first Saturday of Great Lent. On Friday evening, at the Divine Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts following the prayer at the Ambo, the Canon to the holy Great Martyr Theodore, composed by Saint John of Damascus, is sung. Afterward, kollyva is blessed and distributed to the faithful. The commemoration of the Great Martyr Theodore on the first Saturday of Great Lent was established by Patriarch Nektarios of Constantinople (381-397).
The Troparion to Saint Theodore is quite similar to the Troparion for the Prophet Daniel and the Three Holy Youths (December 17 and Sunday Before the Nativity).1 The Kontakion for Saint Theodore, who suffered martyrdom by fire, reminds us that he also had faith as his breastplate (see 1 Thessalonians 5:8).2
Saint Theodore the Recruit is also commemorated on February 17.
Troparion — Tone 2
Great are the accomplishments of faith, / the Holy Martyr Theodore rejoiced in the flames as though at the water of rest, / for having been made a whole-burnt offering in the fire, / offered to the Trinity as a sweet loaf. / By his prayers, O Christ God, save our souls!
Kontakion — Tone 8
Original melody
Having carried the faith of Christ within thy heart as a breastplate; / thou didst trample underfoot the forces of the Enemy. / Therefore thou art crowned with a heavenly crown, as one who is joyfully invincible.
