Venerable Father Teodosii of Tărnovo

Saint Teodosii of Tărnovo

Today in the Orthodox Church of America we commemorate the life of Saint Teodosii of Tărnovo, along with his disciple Saint Roman (who is also venerated on 17 February). A disciple of Saint Grēgorios of Sinai and a hermit who resided in the vicinity of Tărnovo, Saint Teodosii did much to propagate and popularise the practice of hesychasm during the Middle Ages, at a time when the inward approach to prayer was still considered an ‘innovation’ by many Orthodox authorities. Saint Teodosii was a mentor to Patriarch Saint Kallistos I of Constantinople, who committed his Life to writing, and also to the great Patriarch Saint Evtimii of Tărnovo. Teodosii is recognised as a saint throughout the Orthodox Church, though his cultus is centred in Bulgaria.

Saint Teodosii [Bg. Теодосий] was born in northwestern Bulgaria, though his origins were deliberately obscured by his hagiographer to emphasise his citizenship in the heavenly Jerusalem. He left his native place when he was still a youth and went to Vidin, where he entered the Monastery of Saint Nicholas the Wonderworker, which was then under Abbot Iov – who, seeing the love of Christ in the young man, administered to him the tonsure and gave him his monastic name. At the Vidin Monastery, Teodosii was a model of humility and hard work, and gladly accepted any task the abbot gave him, no matter how menial, as if he had received the command from God Himself. He lived a life of fasting, askēsis and prayer, taking particular delight in reading from the Psalter.

After the repose of Abbot Iov, for whom he prayed with great fervour in his last days on earth, Saint Teodosii left Vidim for the Monastery of the Mother of God in the Holy Mount in Tărnovo, and soon thereafter for the village of Cherven, where he found an abbot who was willing to teach him for a time. From here he left for Mother of God Monastery, called Epikerni’s, in Sliven, where he spent a number of years in ascetic striving under the tutelage of the abbot. When he heard by word of mouth that Saint Grēgorios the Sinaïte, fleeing the Turkish predations on Athos, had arrived in Bulgaria, and had settled at Mount Paroria in Strandzha (which is now a protected nature park). The site of Saint Grēgorios’s final strivings in this life is thought to be the modern-day Chapel of Sveta Petka in Mount Paroria.

Saint Teodosii was drawn to Holy Father Grēgorios, as his hagiography puts it, as iron is drawn to a magnet. Saint Grēgorios welcomed the young monk warmly, and Teodosii soon became one of his favoured disciples. Saint Grēgorios tutored Teodosii in the elements and concepts of the hesychasts’ method. When it happened that a number of robbers and brigands took up residence in Paroria and harassed Grēgorios and his disciples, the Sinaïte sent Teodosii to seek help from Tsar Ivan Aleksandăr for the protection of the monks. The pious Tsar happily agreed to Saint Teodosii’s request, and sent men and horses, and gave a great deal of money to shore up the fortifications in Paroria. Teodosii himself laboured alongside the builders, and prayed many hours besides, until the fortifications were complete. For a time the bandits were kept at bay, but when they again became a problem, Saint Grēgorios and the monks of Paroria again sent Teodosii to Tărnovo to ask for aid.

This time, when Teodosii came to the capital city, a youth named Roman [Bg. Роман] came out to meet him. Roman came from the noble parentage of the Old Bulgars, but he was drawn not to the military life of a feudal lord but instead to the monastic life. He begged Saint Teodosii to take him back to Paroria, to learn the ways of holiness. Teodosii accepted the young nobleman gladly, and Roman was brought back to Saint Grēgorios, who tonsured him a monk. Roman would turn out to be a faithful and loving disciple of Teodosii for the rest of his life. Soon thereafter Saint Grēgorios’s earthly labours were at an end, and he reposed in the Lord on this day in 1347.

The monks at Paroria besought Saint Teodosii to take Saint Grēgorios’s place as abbot, but he did not have any wish to take on such cares, and he left Paroria before the monks could make him an abbot. He went to visit his disciple Roman in Sliven. Here he found that Roman was downcast, because he was absent from the monastery on the day of the holy father’s repose, and did not get to take part in saying farewell to the great hesychast. Saint Teodosii took Roman and went with him to the Holy Mountain, where the two monks undertook as deep a study as might be allowed of the methods of hesychasm. Their stay on Athos was not long, however, for the Turks still harassed the monks there and subjected them to various indignities and persecutions. Saints Teodosii and Roman wandered around to various places in the Greek-speaking world – including Thessalonikē and Constantinople – and Bulgaria, staying in no one place long, emulating the bees in their collection of sweetness and light from whatever place might house them and their purification of themselves in the word of God as bees condense honey.

At length, they came again to the vicinity of Tărnovo, where they met with the warm and hospitable welcome of Tsar Ivan Aleksandăr, and were given leave to make cells for themselves in the Holy Mount. Saints Teodosii and Roman set up their hermitage in the mountain, at Kilifarevo. The two of them laboured there in holy solitude for three years, but soon Kilifarevo became renowned for its holiness on their account, and men from all walks of life went to seek them out and learn from them. Soon fifty were living with them, and the hermitage was not large enough to accommodate them. Kilifarevo soon became a monastery – indeed one of the most famous in the Holy Mount at Tărnovo. Among the most renowned disciples of Saint Teodosii at Kilifarevo was the future Patriarch of Bulgaria, Saint Evtimii, whose love for Christ ran just as deep, and who embraced both the ascetic life and the hesychastic method with an unmatched zeal. Saint Evtimii’s later labours would go on to shine far more brightly for this strong early foundation in monasticism.

Saints Teodosii and Roman had to contend, however, with opponents of hesychasm, who were at that time as numerous as the followers of hesychasm and who viewed the pursuit of silence and inward prayer as an unacceptable ‘innovation’ in the life of the Church. Teodosii engaged in polemical exchanges against a certain Phanariote monk and persecutor of the hesychasts named Theodōrētos, and apparently got the better of him in these exchanges, because the Tsar evicted Theodōrētos and vindicated Teodosii. On another occasion, a certain hæretical nun of Thessalonikē named Eirēnē (who apparently preached some kind of Gnostic dualism related to or influenced by Bogomilism) also sent two of her disciples, Lazarus and Bozota, together with Bozota’s disciple Stefan, into Bulgaria. These two preachers apparently stirred up significant dissension within the Church to the point that the Patriarch of Bulgaria found himself compelled to organise a local sobor, to which Saint Teodosii was invited. When the followers of Eirēnē were called forth and stood to defend their doctrines, the holy hesychast stood up and delivered a rousing defence of all the holy things which the errant preachers attacked: the institution of marriage, the material world, icons, the Holy Cross, the Eucharist. His monologue put the Gnostics to shame, and Orthodoxy was vindicated at this sobor. The heretics were expelled from Bulgaria by the Tsar. On another occasion, Teodosii converted, with kindly and meek words of correction instead of with polemics, a certain monk who was teaching a similarly Gnostic doctrine and living together in an irregular fashion with men and women alike. Seeing the error of his ways, the Gnostic preacher returned to Orthodoxy, abjured his former beliefs, and set up two separate monasteries for men and women which held to a regular discipline.

Saints Teodosii and Roman were also marginally involved in a certain political crisis involving Tsar Ivan Aleksandăr and his wife Sarah, who had converted from Judaism to Orthodox Christianity in order to marry the Tsar. Certain extremist members of the Jewish community in Bulgaria apparently committed several acts of blasphemy against the Church shortly after Sarah’s conversion and marriage. Sarah’s conversion had been sincere, however, and these actions were enough for her to call forward a sobor to condemn the members of her former faith who attacked the Orthodox Church. Unfortunately, this sobor proved to be an occasion for a general persecution of the Jews in Bulgaria, which punished the innocent along with the guilty. It is equally unfortunate that Saint Teodosii’s Phanariot hagiographer uses the opportunity of this sobor to indulge in a hateful anti-Semitic diatribe which has very little to do with the actual life of this saint.

Saint Teodosii did, however, have to endure the attacks of the Turks against his homeland, and subsequent long periods of exile from his monastery, as well as painful bouts of illness which caused his flesh to waste and wither. However, he endured all these things with the patience of one who has a great hope and faith in Christ. Towards the end of his life he came to visit his fellow student of Grēgorios of Sinai and his hagiographer, Patriarch Kallistos of Constantinople, where he was received with great joy. Although his trials, sent by the Evil One, had greatly afflicted his body, it was clear to all when he arrived in the city that he had been tried and tested in the fire like gold, and that his spirit shone brightly for all to see, radiating the love of Christ. He took up residence in Constantinople for the last months of his life, and instructed the disciples around him to be steadfast in their love for each other, in their love for their neighbours, and in their love for Christ – as well as in their love for the truth in the person of Christ against the hæresies that afflicted the people of the Balkans. On the twenty-seventh of November of 1362 or 1363 – being the same date as the repose of his teacher Grēgorios of Sinai – Saint Teodosii gave up his own spirit and reposed in the Lord.

Saint Roman, when his mentor left for Constantinople, was left in charge of the flock at Kilifarevo. He faithfully bore his charge and upheld the ascetic life and the emphasis on hesychastic prayer that his teacher Teodosii had taught him. He continued to pray and fast and keep long vigils through the night, being gentle with his monks but being strict upon himself as an example for their edification. Although he was afflicted with several illnesses, including the whooping cough, Saint Roman redoubled in his labours for he was eager to be found worthy of his beloved teacher’s example. When his end was near, Saint Roman gathered the monks of Kilifarevo around him and blessed them, instructed them one final time, and he himself departed to the Lord on the seventeenth of February. (The footnote to the hagiography says that the year is unclear.) Saint Roman was buried with due honours by the monks at Kilifarevo. Holy venerable father Teodosii, blessed hesychasts and defenders of the divine Truth, pray unto Christ our God for our salvation!

Apolytikion for Saint Teodosii, Tone 8:

Let us imitate you, O Father, that we shall be saved,
For having taken up the Cross, you followed Christ.
And indeed you have learned to despise the flesh for it is transitory;
But instead care for the immortal soul.
For this reason you rejoice with the angels O Venerable Teodosii.

Kilifarevo Monastery, Dimitrovgrad, Bulgaria