The first week of Great Lent is a special one. Just recently, on Forgiveness Sunday, the Lament of Adam sounded forth for us, and the sense of the gates of Paradise closing behind our backs compels us, gathering all our strength, during these first Lenten days to fast strictly, sometimes to the very limit of our endurance; to listen in the evenings to the Great Penitential Canon; and to prepare for confession, striving to sweep out all the dust from the most hidden corners of the soul.
And then, having squeezed from ourselves what seems the utmost possible effort, we come to the end of the week and… from stern, concentrated adults we suddenly become like children who have come to a feast and receive a treat—the blessed koliva. This koliva is distributed in church on the eve of the commemoration of St. Theodore the Tyro—on Friday morning, after the Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts and the reading of the canon to the saint.
St. Theodore the Tyro: The First Patron of Venice
St. Theodore the Tyro According to his Life, Theodore was a soldier in the Marmaritan regiment in the city of Amasea (Asia Minor) and suffered a martyr’s death during the Great Persecution of Christians under Emperor Diocletian and his co-ruler Galerius.
Christian historians Lactantius and Eusebius of Caesarea maintain that it was Galerius who initiated the campaign of harsh repression and inspired the fourth edict, issued in 304, which required all Christians, under threat of death, to offer sacrifice to the Roman gods.
According to tradition, Theodore the Tyro was given several days to reflect, during which he prayed fervently; and when he was brought before the city governor Publius for trial, he confessed himself to be a Christian. He was cast into prison, tortured—including by starvation—and, when he would not renounce Christ, was burned alive on a pyre.
The remains of the martyr were buried by a Christian woman named Eusebia in her home in the city of Euchaita. Later, his relics were transferred to Constantinople, and from there eventually taken to Venice. Theodore the Tyro was regarded as the patron of that city until the relics of the Apostle Mark were brought there.
By Hook or by Crook
However, in the Orthodox liturgical tradition the commemoration of this saint is connected with a legendary event said to have taken place about half a century after his martyrdom, during the reign of Emperor Julian the Apostate. By his order, all the food sold in the markets of Constantinople was sprinkled with the blood of pagan sacrifices, thereby virtually depriving Christians of sustenance—a decision entirely in keeping with this excitable, decadent emperor, who had an unhealthy fascination with the occult.
Striving to return the empire to paganism, he found no common language either with the pagan priests or with ordinary people, to whom his occult experiments seemed like dangerous sorcery. Therefore Julian had enough practical sense, while wielding power, not to resort to open violence against Christians, who by that time constituted the majority among the urban populations of Asia and Syria, Egypt and Africa, the Balkans and Italy. He knew that earlier persecutions had resulted in martyrdom and confession of faith—and in the multiplication of Christians.
The disciple of Blessed Augustine, Paulus Orosius, wrote: “Persecuting the Christian religion more by cunning than by open violence, he sought rather to entice men by rewards to reject Christ and accept the worship of idols than to compel them by tortures.”
He dismissed Christians from the army and from civil service, deprived Christian clergy of the privileges granted them by Constantine, ordered pagan temples confiscated from the pagans to be returned, and recalled from exile heretics who had been condemned by Christians, in order to sow division within the Church. Julian did not forbid Christians to profess their religion, nor did he repress them simply for their faith—yet he left unpunished the murders of Christians carried out by pagan mobs.
Thus, to place the Christians of Constantinople before the choice—to die of hunger or effectively to participate in pagan sacrifice—was entirely in keeping with his character.
“Lest I Make My Brother to Offend”
At first glance, one might ask: what does it matter? Does not the Apostle Paul say that “meats for the belly, and the belly for meats: but God shall destroy both it and them” (1 Cor. 6:13)? And concerning food offered to idols, we know that “an idol is nothing in the world, and that there is none other God but one” (1 Cor. 8:4). But meat commendeth us not to God: for neither, if we eat, are we the better; neither, if we eat not, are we the worse (1 Cor. 8:8).
Yet he also warns: But take heed lest by any means this liberty of yours become a stumblingblock to them that are weak. For if any man see thee which hast knowledge sit at meat in the idol’s temple, shall not the conscience of him which is weak be emboldened to eat those things which are offered to idols; and through thy knowledge shall the weak brother perish, for whom Christ died? But when ye sin so against the brethren, and wound their weak conscience, ye sin against Christ (1 Cor. 8:9–12).
And when the emperor’s decree to sprinkle all the food in the markets with sacrificial blood was issued, St. Theodore the Tyro appeared in a dream to Eudoxius, Archbishop of Constantinople. Warning him of the emperor’s scheme, he instructed that all Christians should eat koliva (kutia)—boiled wheat grains (a symbol of the Resurrection), sweetened with honey (a symbol of eternal blessedness)—for at that time stores of grain could be found in every household.
In remembrance of this event, the celebration in honor of St. Theodore was later established, to be kept on the first Saturday of Great Lent. The earliest description of this feast was left by Nectarius, Patriarch of Constantinople, who occupied that see from 381 to 397.
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The service to St. Theodore the Tyro begins on Friday with Vespers joined to the Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts (as a rule, these services are celebrated on Friday morning). At the end of the Liturgy, after the Prayer Behind the Ambo, a moleben canon to St. Theodore—composed by our venerable father John of Damascus—is sung, and the koliva is blessed. Then, on Saturday at Matins, the canon in honor of Saint Theodore, composed by John, Metropolitan of Euchaita, is chanted.
