Holy Saint Theodotē of Asia, Mother of Kosmas and Damianos

Saint Theodotē of Mesopotamia (centre) with her sons

Together with Saints Kosmas and Damianos today, we also commemorate their loving and righteous mother, Saint Theodotē. As with Saint Martha of Antioch, the mother of Symeōn the Younger Stylite, Saint Theodotē was not a noblewoman, not a martyr and not a celibate ascetic. Her sanctity was the sanctity of the married woman, and her sanctity was the sanctity of the mother. It is also somewhat wrong, I think, with either of these saints, to make them mere auxiliaries to their more famous holy sons. The hagiographies are actually clear on this point; it is we modern believers who tend to get it backwards. These sons were not the ones who sanctified their mothers: the mothers were the ones who taught these great saints of the Church sanctity. We honour these women for their own sake, because it is through them and by their work that the holiness of their sons was accomplished.

That having been said, we do not know much, actually, about the early life of Saint Theodotē [Gk. Θεοδότη, L. Theodota, Ar. Ṯiyyûdût ثيودوت]. We know that she lived in a ‘mixed marriage’ – that she was married to a pagan husband, but that she herself was Christian. The two of them had seven children together, the eldest two of whom were the saintly twins. At the same time, she lived obediently within her ‘mixed marriage’ until her husband died, and she took particular care to raise her young sons Kosmas and Damianos in a holy Christian life. The hagiography of Saints Kosmas and Damianos tells us that she taught them by her own gentle example, and also that she read to them from Holy Scripture. She ‘preserved her children in purity of life according to the command of the Lord’. It was because of the upbringing that these saints received from their mother Theodotē that they grew into the virtuous men that they were. Holy Saint Theodotē, loving and selfless mother who set your children upon the path of selflessness, pray unto Christ our God that our souls may be saved!