Saint Theodosios the Cœnobiarch
القدّيس البار ثيودوسيوس رئيس الأديار
The eleventh of January is the feast-day in the Orthodox Church of Saint Theodosios the Great, the founder of cœnobitic, or communal, monasticism in the Orthodox East. Slightly prædating Saint Benedict of Nursia in the West, he exhibited in his life and in the rule which he founded in the East, the same radical hospitality and kenotic care for the poor that Benedict demonstrated and taught.
Saint Theodósios [Gr. Θεοδόσιος, Ar. Ṯiyyûdûsyûs ثيودوسيوس or ‘Atallâh عطا ٱلله] was born in the Year of our Lord 427 to Cappadocian parents named Proairésios and Eulogía. Both of his parents were devout Orthodox Christians. When he was young, he demonstrated a love of song and showed himself to have a very sweet singing voice, which he used in the church choirs. Saint Theodosios doubtless bore this same love of musical harmony into his organisation of the common life of his monks. He became a reader in the Church, and thereafter entered upon the life of a celibate ascetic. He prayed fervently and constantly, hoping the Lord would show him the path to salvation of himself and of others.
As a young man he sojourned in the Holy Land and, while there, met with his fellow-Cappadocian Saint Simeon Stylites. After conversing with the young Theodosios, Saint Simeon blessed him, and predicted for him a future of pastoral service. Like Saint Simeon, Theodosius was drawn to the eremitical life of the deserts; he sought out a cave in Palestine. This cave was the one in which the Magi spent the night, when they came to Bethlehem to adore the Saviour after His Nativity. He spent thirty years there in solitary fasting and unceasing prayers.
The holy man’s life began to attract followers. There were many who desired to emulate Saint Theodosios’s way of living, and his disciples soon grew too many for the cave to hold. Holy Theodosios calmly instructed his disciples to have faith, and that the Lord would Himself show them where they were all to live. And so he took a censer with unlit coals inside, and he bore it out of the cave into the wilderness, with his disciples in procession. At length he came to a place where the coals began to glow without having been touched, and set the incense smoke to rise. Here Theodosios founded the first cœnobitic monastery, or lavra, consisting of a complex of monastic cells built around a common refectory and oratory. Saint Theodosios’s new community, which began with seven hundred disciples, followed the Rule of Saint Basil the Great. The Monastery of Saint Theodosios is still standing on the eastern side of Bethlehem at the edge of the desert.
The Lavra was renowned for being a house of compassion and hospitality. This was no accident. Saint Theodosios himself led by example, and he was broadly renowned for his own personal generosity and compassion. At one time there was a famine in the Holy Land, and a great multitude of the Palestinian people arrived unannounced at the gates of the Lavra. Saint Theodosios gave orders to his disciples to fling the doors wide and allow all of the starving people within to eat their fill. His disciples were annoyed, because the people were too many and they knew there was not enough food in the refectory kitchen to feed them all. And yet, Saint Theodosios began to pray, and in answer to his prayers, the kitchen stores were filled up with fresh bread, in amounts large enough to fill every hunger outside. Saint Theodosios repeated this miracle every time the Lavra had to satisfy the needs of its guests.
At the Lavra, Saint Theodosios and his disciples built a wayhouse for pilgrims, the poor and the destitute. They also built hospitals for both monks and laymen, modelled on Saint Basil’s free and charitable hospital, the Basiliad. This complex also included a hospice in which the monks would tend to the dying. The Lavra gathered in monks from many lands. Saint Theodosios did not insist, unlike certain modern Greek chauvinists, that the only language fit to serve the Church in Palestine was Greek. Instead, he arranged it so that the Lavra might hold the services of the Church in Greek, Armenian and Georgian as well – though the Divine Liturgy itself continued to be held in Greek.
Saint Theodosios did uphold vigorously the truths of the Holy Orthodox Church, in particular against the errors of the Monophysites. Under the reign of Emperor Anastasios, a hæretical teacher named Severus, a follower of Eutyches, gained political favour enough to hold office in Antioch. Severus led a persecution in which in particular the adherents of the Fourth Œcumenical Council were targeted. Saint Theodosios bravely, at risk to his freedom and life, composed an epistle to the Emperor on behalf of the monks of the Lavra and of the Syrian Deserts asserting their steadfast adherence to the Council of Chalcedon and their noncompliance with Severus and the Monophysites. Though Anastasios for a brief time showed some restraint, the outrages against the Orthodox faithful were permitted to continue with his assent. Then Saint Theodosios strode into the great church in Jerusalem and shouted out from a high place, in the hearing of all the people: ‘Whosoever does not honour the four Œcumenical Councils: let him be anathema!’ The holy abbot was apprehended by the Roman authorities and cast into prison for this pronouncement, but he was released upon the death of Emperor Anastasios.
Saint Theodosios wrought a number of divine wonders and healings during his life, for God had bestowed upon him the gift. He was able to heal the sick, he was able to appear to others from a great distance away, and he was able to tame wild beasts. He was also given the gift of foresight and intuition: he was able to discern the future and the inward thoughts of those who came to him. Also, because he loved so much the fallahîn, he was able to make crops of wheat to multiply in time of need – in a similar way, as noted above, he was able to multiply bread to be given to the hungry. He practised continuous prayers, both in the day and at night. At one time he was able, by his prayers, to destroy a swarm of locusts that were ravaging the fields in Palestine. He also was able to save soldiers from death by his prayers; sailors he was able to save from shipwreck; and those lost in the desert he was able to deliver.
In order to call the monks to the refectory to eat, or to the oratory to pray, Saint Theodosios would strike a large wooden semandron with a mallet. One day as he called the brethren to prayer, he spoke: ‘The wrath of God draws near the East.’ Several days later, word reached the monks that at the very same hour in which he had called them to their prayers that day, a mighty earthquake had struck Antioch and destroyed much of that city.
Saint Theodosios was also given to know the date at which he would repose. Three days prior to his passing he summoned three well-beloved and trusted bishops to him, and told them he must soon depart to the Lord. On the eleventh of January, 529, he reposed in the Lord at the age of one hundred and five. The relics of the saint were interred with great honour and reverence in the first cave he had inhabited as a monastic. Holy ascetic and abbot Theodosios, forefather of the monastic life, pray unto Christ our God for us sinners!
Apolytikion for Saint Theodosios, Tone 8:
By a flood of tears you made the desert fertile,
and your longing for God brought forth fruits in abundance.
By the radiance of miracles you illumined the whole universe!
Our Father Theodosius, pray to Christ God to save our souls!
St Theodosios Monastery, al-‘Ubeydiyya, Palestine
دير ابن عبيد، العبيدية، فلسطين
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