November 9 + Saint Theodore the Recruit

The great holy martyr Theodore the Recruit was a soldier in the city of Amaseia in Pontus (modern day Turkey) on the coast of the Black Sea, under the command of the Praepositus (regimental commander) Brincus. Theodore was ordered to offer sacrifices to idols, but he proclaimed his faith in Christ the Savior in a loud voice. Brincus gave him a few days to think it over, during which time Theodore prayed.

They charged him with setting a pagan temple on fire, and threw him into prison to be starved to death. The Lord Jesus Christ appeared to him there, comforting and encouraging him. Brought to the governor, Theodore boldly and fearlessly confessed his faith, for which he was subjected to new torments and condemned to burning. Theodore climbed onto the fire without hesitation and with prayer, and gave up his holy soul to God. He died in 306 AD.

Unharmed by the fire, his body was buried in the city of Euchaita. His relics were afterwards transferred to Constantinople, to a church dedicated to him. His head is in Italy in the city of Gaeto.

Fifty years after Theodore’s death, the emperor Julian the Apostate, who had tried every means to restore pagan customs within the Roman empire, noticed that Christians were accustomed to sanctify the first week of Lent before Pascha by fasting and prayer. The cruel despot ordered the prefect of Constantinople to sprinkle all the food in the market with the blood of victims sacrificed to idols, so that it was impossible for any of the city's residents to escape the taint of idolatry.

But the Lord did not abandon his faithful people. He sent his servant Theodore, who appeared in a vision to Archbishop Eudoxius to foil the machinations of the tyrant. He ordered that no Christian was to buy the food then presented in the markets, but rather to eat cooked wheat with honey instead, that they already had at their homes. Thus, through the intervention of the holy martyr Theodore, the Christians kept pure from the defilement of idolatry.