The holy
right-believing Prince Theodore of Smolensk and Yaroslavl, nicknamed the
“Black” [i.e. “dark” or “swarthy”], was born at a terrible time for Rus: the
Mongol invasion of 1237-1239. At Baptism he was named for the holy Great Martyr
Theodore Stratelates (February 8), who was particularly esteemed by the Russian
warrior-princes.
Prince
Theodore was famed for his military exploits. The child Theodore was not in the
city when, through the prayers of the Most Holy Theotokos, the holy Martyr
Mercurius (November 24) delivered Smolensk from being captured by Batu In the
year 1239. They had taken him away and hidden him in a safe place during the
warfare. In 1240 his father, Prince Rostislav died. He was a great-grandson of
the holy Prince Rostislav of Smolensk and Kiev (March 14).
His elder
brothers as heirs divided their father’s lands among themselves, allotting to
the child Theodore the small holding of Mozhaisk. Here he spent his childhood,
and here he studied Holy Scripture, the church services and military science.
In the
year 1260, Prince Theodore was married to Maria Vasilievna, daughter of holy
Prince Basil of Yaroslavl (July 3), and Theodore became Prince of Yaroslavl.
They had a son named Michael, but Saint Theodore was soon widowed. He spent
much of his time on military campaigns, and his son was raised by his
mother-in-law, Princess Xenia.
In 1277,
the allied forces of the Russian princes, in union with the Tatar forces, took
part in a campaign in the Osetian land and in the taking of “its famed city
Tetyakov.” In this war the allied forces won a complete victory. From the time
of Saint Alexander Nevsky (November 23), the khans of the Golden Horde, seeing
the uncrushable spiritual and the military strength of Orthodox Russia, were
compelled to change their attitude. They began to draw the Russian princes into
alliances, and the khans turned to them for military assistance.
The
Russian Church made use of these providentially improved relations for the
Christian enlightenment of the foreigners. Already in 1261, through the efforts
of Saint Alexander Nevsky and Metropolitan Cyril III at Sarai, the capital of
the Golden Horde, a diocese of the Russian Orthodox Church was established. In
the year 1276, a Constantinople Council presided over by Patriarch John Bekkos
(1275-1282) replied to questions of the Russian Bishop Theognostus of Sarai
concerning the order for baptizing Tatars, and also for receiving Monophysite
and Nestorian Christians among them into Orthodoxy.
During
these years Prince Theodore was at the Horde. Having distinguished himself by
military exploits on the Osetian campaign, he won the favorable attention of
Khan Mengu-Temir, who regarded the Orthodox Church with respect, and who as
Khan issued the first decree exempting the church from taxes for Metropolitan
Cyril.
The
Chronicles say: “The emperor Mengu-Temir and his empress were fond of Prince
Theodore Rostislavich, and did not want to permit him return back to Rus
because of his bravery and the comeliness of his face.”
Saint
Theodore spent three years at the Horde. Finally, “the emperor sent him off
with great honor,” and the prince arrived in Yaroslavl. His wife Maria had
already died, and in the city Princess Xenia ruled with her grandson Michael.
The people of Yaroslavl would not receive the prince returning from the Horde,
“not allowing him to enter the city but saying to him, ‘this is Princess
Xenia’s city, and Michael is our prince.’”
Saint
Theodore had to return to the Horde. The empress, wife of khan Mengu-Temir,
“had a great fondness for him and wished for him to marry her own daughter.”
Such a marriage had tremendous significance for Rus. For a long time the Khan
would not agree to it, regarding the Russian princes as mere vassals or
subjects.
To give
his daughter in marriage to a Russian prince meant to acknowledge him as an
equal. More importantly, it meant that the khan would acknowledge the primacy
of Orthodoxy, since before the wedding, the Tatar princess had to accept holy
Baptism. The khan went along with this, since an alliance with Russia was very
important for him, “and he ordered his daughter to be given to Prince Theodore,
and for her to be baptized first, and he commanded that the Orthodox Faith not
be insulted.” Thus Saint Theodore was married to the mighty khan's daughter,
who was baptized with the name Anna. “The emperor held him in great esteem and
commanded that he be seated opposite himself, he built him a palace, and gave
him princes and nobles in retinue.”
There at
the Golden Horde Saint Theodore’s sons, Prince David and Prince Constantine
were also born. The tremendous influence which Saint Theodore gained at the
Horde, he used to the glory of the Russian Land and the Russian Church.
Orthodoxy gained strength among the Tatars, and the Horde began to adopt
Russian customs, morals and piety. Russian merchants, architects, and skilled
craftsmen carried Russian culture to the shores of the Don, the Volga, the
Urals and even into Mongolia itself.
From this
period archeologists find Orthodox icons, and crosses and lampadas, throughout
all the former territories of the Golden Horde, since included as part of
Russia. So began a great missionary movement of the Russian Church towards the
East, and the enlightening of all the tribes with the light of the Gospel truth
all the way to the Great Ocean (i.e. the Pacific). Russian Orthodox princes and
their retinues, participating as allies in the Mongol campaigns, learned of and
became familiar with the boundless expanses of Asia, Siberia and the Far East.
In the year 1330, more than thirty years after the death of Saint Theodore,
Chinese chronicles mention Russians in Peking.
Saint
Theodore lived in Sarai until 1290, when “news reached him from Rus, from the
city of Yaroslavl, that his first son, Prince Michael, had died.” Having given
the prince rich gifts and a large retinue, the khan sent him back to Rus. Again
he became the prince at Yaroslavl. Saint Theodore began zealously to concern
himself with strengthening and building up his city and principality. He had a
special love for the monastery of the Transfiguration of the Lord.
His fame
resounded throughout Rus, and all the princes sought friendship and alliances
with him. But most of all, he was fond of the son of Saint Alexander Nevsky,
Andrew Alexandrovich, supporting him in all undertakings. When Prince Andrew
became Great Prince of Vladimir, he went with him on military campaigns. He was
gladdened by the victories, and he grieved over his defeat. In 1296, a bloody
fratricidal war was just breaking out between two groups of princes: on the one
side was Saint Theodore and Great Prince Andrew, and on the other side, Saint Michael
of Tver (November 22) and Saint Daniel of Moscow (March 4). But with the help
of God the bloodshed was successfully averted.
At a
meeting of the princes (in 1296) Bishop Simeon of Vladimir and Bishop Ishmael
of Sarai managed to bring peace to both sides. This fact, that holy Prince
Theodore and Bishop Ishmael participated in the meeting, shows that Saint
Theodore used all his diplomatic talents and influence at the Horde to
establish peace in the Russian Land.
Saint
Theodore the Black’s ties to his Smolensk origins were not sundered, though it
would have been difficult for him to be Prince of Smolensk. Thus, in the year
1297, Saint Theodore went on a campaign to Smolensk to reclaim his lawful
rights to the Smolensk principality, which had been usurped by his nephews. But
he did not take the city and become the Prince of Smolensk again.
Soon
after this campaign the holy warrior-prince became ill. On September 18, 1299
the saint gave orders that he be carried to the Savior-Transfiguration
monastery, and there he received monastic tonsure. Towards the end of the
ritual, Saint Theodore asked that the service be interrupted. With the blessing
of the igumen, and to grant the wish of the dying prince, they carried him into
the monastery courtyard, where a throng of the Yaroslavl people had already
gathered. “And the prince repented before all the people, if he had sinned
against anyone or held ill-feelings against anyone. He blessed all those who
had sinned against him or borne him enmity, and begged their pardon. He
accepted his responsibility for all his deeds before God and man.” Only after
this did the humble warrior achieve his desire to finish his unusual and
much-troubled life’s path by accepting the angelic schema.
All night
the igumen and the brethren prayed over the holy prince. At the second hour of
the night they began to ring the bell for Matins. Saint Theodore lay silently
upon his monk’s cot and received the Holy Mysteries of Christ. When the monks
began the third “Glory” of the Psalter, he made the Sign of the Cross and gave
up his soul to the Lord. His appearance at the grave was extraordinary:
“Wondrous indeed was the appearance of the blessed one. He lay upon the cot not
as one dead, but as one alive. His face shone like as the rays of the sun,
adorned by his venerable grey hair, bearing witness to his purity of soul and
his benevolence.”
After
him, his son Saint David (+ 1321) ruled at Yaroslavl. The second of his sons,
Constantine, had evidently died earlier. The Church veneration of Prince
Theodore in the Yaroslavl region began soon after his death. During the years
1322-1327, Bishop Prochorus of Rostov commissioned the famous Theodorov Gospel,
adorned with miniatures, in memory of Saint Theodore. Previously, Bishop
Prochorus had been igumen of the Savior-Transfiguration monastery at Yaroslavl.
Actually, he knew the holy prince personally, and witnessed his tonsure and
public repentance before the people. Historians think that the fine miniatures
sewn into this precious manuscript had come from an earlier Gospel owned by
Saint Theodore himself, and which he had brought with him to Yaroslavl as a
blessing from his native Smolensk.
On March
5, 1463, at Yaroslavl the relics of holy Prince Theodore and his sons, David
and Constantine were uncovered. The chronicler, an eyewitness to the event,
recorded under that year: “At the city of Yaroslavl in the monastery of the
Holy Savior they unearthed three Great Princes: Prince Theodore Rostislavich
and his sons David and Constantine, and brought them above the ground. Great
Prince Theodore was a man of great stature, and they placed his sons David and
Constantine beside him. Their stature was less than his. They had lain in a
single grave.” The physical appearance of the holy prince so impressed the eyewitnesses
and those present at the uncovering of the relics, that an account of this was
entered into the Prologue (lives of saints) in Saint Theodore’s Life, and also
into the text of the Manual for Iconographers.
The Life
of the holy Prince Theodore the Black was written shortly after the uncovering
of the relics, by the hieromonk Anthony of the Yaroslav Savior monastery, with
the blessing of the Metropolitan Philip of Moscow and All Rus. Another version
of the Life was written by Andrew Yuriev at the Saint Cyril of White Lake
monastery. A third and more detailed Life of Saint Theodore was included in the
“Book of Ranks of Imperial Geneology,” compiled under Tsar Ivan the Terrible
and Metropolitan Macarius.
The
Russian people composed spiritual songs about Prince Theodore, which they sang
over the centuries in “their destitute wanderings.” The verses glorify the
saint’s piety and discernment, beneficence and kind-heartedness, and his
concern for building and adorning churches. The complexity of historical
destinies, the roughness of the era, the multitude of enemies (not personal,
but enemies of Russia and the Church), reveal to us the great exploits of the
saintly builders of the Russian Land.
Source: https://oca.org/saints/lives/2006/09/19/102667-st-theodore-the-prince-of-smolensk-and-yaroslav
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