ST THEODORUS OF SYKEON, BISHOP AND CONFESSOR - 22 APRIL

 

ALL SAINTS CELEBRATED IN APRIL

Saints celebrated on the 22nd of April

Prayer to the Angels and the Saints

Heavenly Father, in praising Your Angels and Saints we praise Your glory, for by honouring them we honour You, their Creator. Their splendour shows us Your greatness, which infinitely surpasses that of all creation.

In Your loving providence, You saw fit to send Your Angels to watch over us. Grant that we may always be under their protection and one day enjoy their company in heaven.

Heavenly Father, You are glorified in Your Saints, for their glory is the crowning of Your gifts. You provide an example for us by their lives on earth, You give us their friendship by our communion with them, You grant us strength and protection through their prayer for the Church, and You spur us on to victory over evil and the prize of eternal glory by this great company of witnesses.

Grant that we who aspire to take part in their joy may be filled with the Spirit that blessed their lives, so that, after sharing their faith on earth, we may also experience their peace in heaven. Amen.

ST THEODORUS OF SYKEON, BISHOP AND CONFESSOR 

Saint Theodorus was a native of Siceon [Sykeon] in Galatia, and from his infancy so much given to prayer, that, when at school, he often deprived himself of his dinner, to spend the time allowed for it in the church. All his leisure hours he consecrated to the exercises of prayer and pious reading. He very early shut himself up in a cell in the house of his mother, afterwards in a cave under a retired chapel; and flying at length from thence, to avoid applause, lived on a desert mountain. 

HE SOUGHT TO AVOID PUBLIC ACCLAIM

He was ordained priest by the bishop of Anastasiopolis, and near an ancient chapel built in honour of St George, to which holy martyr he was exceedingly devoted; he founded a great monastery. In a second pilgrimage to Jerusalem, like another Elias, he, by his prayers, obtained rain from heaven in a great drought in Palestine. 

HE BUILT A LARGE MONASTERY AT SICEON

He formed many eminent disciples, and built a large monastery at Siceon, which town was situated in the diocese of Anastasiopolis; but still made his chief abode in a little remote cell. 

Count Mauritius, general of the armies of the Emperor Tiberius, when he returned triumphant from Persia, paid a visit to this saint, who foretold him the empire, by a revelation which he had received through the merits of St George the martyr. Mauritius being advanced to the imperial throne, in 582, sent to recommend himself and his empire to the prayers of this humble servant of God. 

BISHOP OF ANASTASIOPOLIS

Theodorus was, by main force, consecrated bishop of Anastasiopolis, and having held that see ten years, he obtained an order from Cyriacus, patriarch of Constantinople, and the Emperor Mauritius, to the archbishop of Ancyra, his metropolitan, to accept his resignation, which he had till then refused. 

Theodorus returned with joy to Siceon, but was called to Constantinople to give his blessing to the emperor and senate. He healed one of the emperor’s sons, afflicted with a leprosy. And being returned to his solitude at Siceon, he died there, in 613, on April 22, on which day his name occurs in the Roman Martyrology.

(From Fr Butler's Lives of the Saints)