Venerable Theophilus the Confessor (8th Century) — October 10 / October 23 (Julian Calendar)

On this day, October 10 according to the Julian Calendar (October 23 civil calendar), the Georgian Orthodox Church commemorates Venerable Theophilus the Confessor.

Venerable Theophilus the Confessor was a Bulgarian. He was born near the city of Tiberiopolis (later Strumica, in Macedonia). At the age of thirteen the blessed one secretly left home and went to the lavra on Mount Selention. Three years later he was tonsured a monk. When the saint’s parents learned where their son was, they came to the monastery and asked the abbot to send Theophilus with several brethren to Tiberiopolis to found a monastery near his family home. To learn the will of God, the abbot ordered a strict fast and intensified prayer in the monastery. On the third day a voice resounded in the church, blessing the superior to release Theophilus, for he was destined to shine in the new monastery through great spiritual struggle.

When the iconoclast Emperor Leo the Isaurian (717–741) ascended the throne, the holy father rose openly against the heresy of the iconoclasts. For this, by order of the lawless ruler, he was bound like a criminal and led through the streets of the city. The emperor then handed the chosen one of the Lord over to a distinguished courtier, Hypatius, who tormented the saint for a long time but could not win him over. Instead, Theophilus changed Hypatius’ own mind: he reminded the misguided man of how Moses raised up the bronze serpent, of the cherubim fixed upon the Ark of the Covenant, and finally of how the Savior sent His Image Not-Made-by-Hands to King Abgar of Edessa. Hypatius persuaded the emperor to release the blessed father. The confessor returned to his monastery, but did not live long afterward: in the eighth century he peacefully committed his soul to the Lord.