Family and Early Life
The sources agree that Theodora came from a devout family on Aegina. The OCA Synaxarion names her parents as Anthony and Chrysanthe and relates that she loved Christ from a young age before marrying upon reaching adulthood.
The fuller account preserved in her Life describes a family deeply woven into the monastic and clerical life of the period. Her father is said to have taken monastic vows; she had a brother who served as a deacon and was killed in the Arab raids, and a sister who became a nun. Relatives at Thessalonica included an abbess of the convent of St. Luke, an abbess of the convent of St. Stephen, and Anthony the Confessor, later a bishop.
Monastic Life in Thessalonica
Following the family's flight from the Aegean to Thessalonica, Theodora dedicated her daughter to the service of God in a monastery. After her husband's death she herself received the monastic tonsure, by tradition entering the same community as her daughter.
She was remembered above all for her obedience, hard work, fasting, and humility, serving the abbess and the sisters without distinction. The OCA account relates that through these labors she pleased God and received the gift of working miracles both during her lifetime and after her death, while the longer biographical tradition emphasizes the quiet, unspectacular virtue of her many years in the cloister.
Relics and Shrines
After her repose her body was translated from the communal tomb to a separate sarcophagus, from which, according to her hagiographer, a miraculous oil or myrrh streamed forth. Several posthumous healings were recorded, among them the healing of the hagiographer's own sister.
Her cult endured at Thessalonica through later centuries. The OCA account states that in 1430 her holy relics were destroyed during the Turkish conquest of the city. A church dedicated to St. Theodora survives at Thessalonica, and in August 2010 a tomb tentatively identified as hers was reported near a three-aisled basilica associated with her veneration.
Miracles and Traditions
Historically Documented: Her Life, composed by Gregory the Presbyter not long after her death, runs to roughly twenty thousand words and is described as among the longest hagiographical biographies of a holy woman to survive from Byzantium. It records the streaming of fragrant oil from her relics and a number of healings attributed to her intercession.
Traditional Accounts: By tradition, when her abbess died and was buried near her, Theodora's relics reportedly shifted to make room for her superior's grave, a sign understood as her continued obedience even after death.
Commemoration
Theodora is commemorated on April 5. Her repose on 29 August is also kept, and the sources note that her principal feast was associated with that date before it was adjusted because of the conflict with the Beheading of St. John the Baptist.
She is distinguished in the calendar from another Saint Theodora associated with Thessalonica; the Orthodox sources are careful to note the two commemorations of April 5 and August 29.
