Theodulus the Eparch
Our Venerable Father Theodulus the Stylite, Eparch of Constantinople
Venerable · d. c. 440
Commemorated 3 December — Repose, c. 440
Theodulus was the eparch — the imperial city-prefect — of Constantinople in the early fifth century, one of the highest civil dignitaries of the Eastern capital. Unwilling to be entangled in worldly affairs, he resigned his office; and when his wife died, he distributed his wealth to the poor and became a monk. Travelling to Edessa in Mesopotamia, he mounted a pillar and lived as a stylite for some thirty years, eating only once a week, until his repose about the year 440. The Church remembers him as a great man of the world who exchanged rank and riches for the pillar of the ascetics, and commemorates him on December 3.
The eparch who left the world
Theodulus held the office of eparch of Constantinople — the city prefect, who administered the capital and stood at the summit of the civil hierarchy of the Eastern Empire. The synaxarion places him under an emperor Theodosius; the older tradition, followed by the Orthodox Church in America, names Theodosius the Great (Theodosius I, reigned 379–395), though the length of his ascetic labours and his repose around 440 point rather to the long reign of his grandson Theodosius II (408–450). The disagreement over the emperor is recorded here without harmonising it; what the sources agree on is the shape of his life.
At the height of his career Theodulus laid down his office of his own will, finding that its cares distracted him from the one thing needful. He did not at first embrace the monastic life — he was a married man — but on the death of his wife the way opened before him. He gave away the whole of his considerable wealth to the poor and took up the monastic habit, renouncing in a single act both the honours he had held and the fortune that had upheld them.
The pillar at Edessa
Seeking a harder and more hidden warfare, Theodulus travelled east to Edessa in Osrhoene, the ancient Syriac Christian city, and there embraced the newest and most austere of the ascetic ways: he climbed a pillar and became a stylite. On its narrow summit, exposed to the heat and cold of the Mesopotamian sky, he stood in unceasing prayer for about thirty years, tasting food only once in the week. His way of life places him among the first generation of the pillar-saints, a near-contemporary of the founding stylite Symeon the Stylite, whose feast opens the church year; where Symeon's pillar rose east of Antioch, Theodulus's stood by Edessa. So the man who had governed the greatest city of the Christian East ended his days higher than any palace and poorer than any beggar, and departed to the Lord in peace around the year 440.
Feast and commemoration
Theodulus is commemorated on December 3, within the Nativity Fast (Old Calendar civil December 16), in both the Greek and the Slavic service books, where he is styled Theodulus the Stylite; the Greek Menaion of the day leads with the prophet Zephaniah, and Theodulus is kept with the common propers of a venerable ascetic together with a proper kontakion. He should not be confused with the several other saints named Theodulus — among them the child-martyr Theodulus, son of Nilus of Sinai (January 14), and the martyrs of that name — with whom the calendars and the Menologion miniatures are easily conflated.
Hymns
Troparion — Tone 8
In thee, O father, was preserved unfailingly that which is according to the image; for taking up thy cross thou didst follow Christ, and by thy deeds thou didst teach us to despise the flesh, for it passeth away, but to care for the soul, a thing immortal. Therefore, O venerable Theodulus, doth thy spirit rejoice with the angels.
Original translation from the Slavonic
Kontakion — Tone 2
The corruptible king and the swiftly-perishing glory hast thou exchanged, O wise father, for the things that abide eternally; and from thy life of sorrow upon the pillar thou hast ascended to the all-gladdening heights, reigning together with the Heavenly King in surpassing glory. O Theodulus, pray thou unceasingly for us all.
Original translation from the Slavonic
Iconography
Theodulus is depicted in the settled type of the stylite saints: a bearded elder in the monastic mantle and cowl, standing or emerging at the head of a tall column, one hand raised in blessing or prayer, sometimes with a ladder against the pillar's side. No pre-modern image identified specifically as Theodulus the Eparch has been secured for this collection; the Menologion of Basil II miniatures that bear the name "Theodulus" belong to other saints of that name (the son of Nilus of Sinai; the martyr of Caesarea), and are deliberately not used here, so as not to attach a wrong face to his memory.