Theodora of Sihla
Our Venerable Mother Theodora of Sihla, Hermitess of the Mountains of Neamț
Venerable · b. first half of the 17th century, at Vânători in Neamț — d. early 18th century, at Sihla in Moldavia
Commemorated 7 August — Repose in her cave at Sihla after some thirty years of solitude
Theodora is the great woman hermit of the Romanian mountains: born at Vânători in the county of Neamț in the first half of the seventeenth century, daughter of Ștefan Joldea, a guard of the fortress of Neamț; married, childless, and — by mutual consent with her husband Eleutherius — separated from him so that both might enter monasteries. She was tonsured at the skete of Vărzărești; driven out by the Turkish raids she became a hesychast in the mountains of Buzău under a schema-nun, Paisia; and when Paisia died she was directed to the mountains of Neamț, where the abbot of Sihăstria sent her to try the wilderness of Sihla for a year. She stayed about thirty, in a cell and afterwards in a cave in the rocks, alone, her food a little rusk and the herbs of the forest, her water the rain gathered in a hollow of the rock. She was discovered, at the end, by birds carrying crumbs up the mountain and by a pillar of light over the place; a priest was sent, she made her confession of faith, communicated, said "Glory to God for all things," and died. She was canonised by the Romanian Orthodox Church in 1992.
Vânători, and the choice of the monastic life
Theodora was born in the village of Vânători in the district of Neamț, in the first half of the seventeenth century. Her father, Ștefan Joldea, was a vătaf — a keeper — of the fortress of Neamț, and the family was devout; her elder sister Marghioala died young.
She was married to Eleutherius, a young man from Ismail. The marriage was childless, and the two of them — this is told without drama in the Romanian sources, as a decision reached together — entered monasteries: Theodora at the skete of Vărzărești in the district of Râmnicu Sărat, Eleutherius at the skete of Poiana Mărului, "the Great Glade."
The Buzău mountains
When the skete of Vărzărești was destroyed by the Turks, Theodora went up into the mountains of Buzău and took up the eremitic life. The raids followed into the Buzău valley, and she withdrew higher, into the mountains themselves, with her spiritual mother, the schema-nun Paisia. There the two women struggled some years together in fasting and vigil, enduring — the account is blunt about it — hunger, cold, and temptations of a kind the writer declines to specify, which Theodora met with fervent prayer.
Paisia died in the mountains between about 1670 and 1675, and Theodora was left alone.
Sihăstria and the year of trial
She received, the life says, an inward direction from God to go to the mountains of Neamț. Arriving there she venerated the wonderworking icon of the Mother of God in the great Lavra of Neamț, and then went to consult the abbot of the skete of Sihăstria, the schema-hieromonk Varsanufie.
Varsanufie perceived what she wanted and what she was. He first communicated her; then he gave her a spiritual director, the priest Paul, and sent her up with a condition: she was to live one year in the forests of the mountain of Sihla, and if by the grace of God she could bear the hardships and the assaults of the enemy she might stay there until her death — and if she could not, she was to go back to a women's monastery and work out her salvation there in humility. It is a piece of practical monastic wisdom, and it is the hinge of her life.
Father Paul, searching for a cell for her and finding none, met an old hesychast living under the rocks of Sihla who, being clairvoyant, gave her his own cell and went off to a poorer hut further into the wilderness.
Thirty years at Sihla
In that cell Theodora struggled about thirty years. She never came down from the mountain again and accepted no human help; only Father Paul climbed up from time to time with the Holy Mysteries, and when he too died she was left with nothing but the providence of God.
The particulars the tradition keeps are the ordinary particulars of the eremitic life, and they are the more convincing for it. She kept vigil all night with her hands raised until the dawn came, and her face shone; then she rested two hours and began again. She ate once every second day — a little rusk with the herbs of the forest, bracken and a wild sorrel that is still called "Saint Theodora's sorrel." She gathered rainwater in a hollow of the rock, still called "Saint Theodora's well," and the local tradition holds that the water in it has never failed.
When the Turks came through the villages and monasteries of Neamț and the woods filled with fugitives, some nuns reached her cell. She gave them the cell and moved into a nearby cave, where she went on alone, unknown to everyone; the stone slab on which she slept is shown there still.
Once a band of Turks roaming the mountains of Sihla came upon her cave and rushed at her to kill her. She fell on her knees and prayed with her hands raised; and — the tradition says — the wall of the cave opened, and she went out through it and hid in the forest and was saved.
The birds, the pillar of light, and her repose
Forty days before the end she prayed for a priest, that she might communicate.
The abbot of Sihăstria had noticed flocks of birds flying up toward the mountain of Sihla with crumbs in their beaks, and wondered whether some hidden ascetic lived there. He sent two brothers to follow them. At nightfall the monks saw a column of light rising to heaven; coming near, they found Theodora praying with her hands raised, her face shining like the sun, and her feet off the ground.
They went back, and the abbot sent them again with the spiritual father Anthony and the deacon Lawrence. She told them her life; then she recited the Creed, received the Holy Mysteries, asked the priest's blessing, and said: "Glory to Thee, O God, for all things." With the word she gave up her soul, and her body gave out a fragrance. The fathers buried her with honour in the cave where she had struggled.
Relics and cult
Word of her went quickly through the monasteries of Moldavia and the villages, and across the border; the sick came to her cave and were healed, and many washed in the water of her well.
Her body remained in the cave about a hundred years. Between 1828 and 1834 her relics were carried to Kiev and laid in the caves of the Pechersk Lavra, under the inscription "Saint Theodora of the Carpathians."
She was canonised by the Romanian Orthodox Church in 1992, and her feast fixed on August 7. The hermitage of Sihla, her cave, the rock-slab and the well are among the most-visited places of pilgrimage in Moldavia; the church of Saint Theodora at Chișinău and others bear her name.
Feast and commemoration
August 7 (church date; New Calendar civil August 7, Old Calendar civil August 20), within the afterfeast of the Transfiguration and within the Dormition fast (August 1–14). The feast is Romanian in origin and rank — a great commemoration in the metropolis of Moldavia and Bukovina, kept with vigil at Sihla and Sihăstria — and is carried into the OCA calendar; because her relics are at Kiev she is also honoured among the saints venerated in the Caves. Her canonisation is recent (1992), and her proper Romanian service belongs to it.
Hymns
Troparion — Tone 8 (common of a venerable woman-ascetic)
Thou didst forsake the world and its cares and take the wilderness of Sihla for thy dwelling, and for thirty years in the cleft of the rock thou didst keep vigil with hands lifted up; the birds of heaven fed thee and a pillar of light betrayed thee, O mother Theodora. Entreat Christ God that our souls may be saved.
Original translation from the Romanian
Iconography
Theodora is painted as a woman hermit: thin, aged, in the dark monastic habit and the veiled koukoulion, most often standing with both hands raised in prayer — the posture in which the monks of Sihăstria found her — before the mouth of her cave in the grey Carpathian rock, with the fir forest behind and, in the fuller compositions, birds bringing crumbs in their beaks, and the column of light descending from heaven. A scroll or a prayer-rope may be given her. The Sihla rocks themselves are the attribute that identifies her at once.
No image has been stored: her canonisation is of 1992, and every icon of her is a modern work in copyright. The relevant pre-modern material — the Sihla hermitage, her cave and her well — is architecture and landscape rather than iconography.
Disputed questions
- The year of her repose is not recorded. Working forward from the death of her elder Paisia (about 1670–1675), the journey to Neamț, and the "about thirty years" at Sihla, the repose falls in the first decade of the eighteenth century. Many lists nonetheless describe her simply as a seventeenth-century saint, taking the century of her birth and her formation for the century of her death. The eighteenth century is used here, with the arithmetic stated; neither figure is documentary.
- Her name in Russian usage. In the Kiev Caves she is inscribed Theodora of the Carpathians, and Russian and Ukrainian pilgrims know her under that name; it is the same person.
- Not to be confused with the several other Theodoras of the calendar — Theodora of Alexandria, Theodora the Empress, Theodora and Didymus of Alexandria — nor with the Romanian Philothea of Argeș, the other great woman saint of the Romanian lands.