Dorotheus of Tyre

Holy Hieromartyr Dorotheus, bishop of Tyre, is remembered in the Church's tradition as an aged scholar who passed through the persecution of Diocletian and died a martyr in the time of Julian the Apostate. According to tradition he was born about 255 and died about 362, at the age of 107. The Church commemorates him on 5 June.

Life according to tradition

Tradition says he was learned both in the Holy Scriptures and in Greek letters, and that he shepherded the Christian community of Tyre in Phoenicia at the beginning of the fourth century. During the persecution of Diocletian, around 303, he endured many sufferings and was forced to withdraw, whether by hiding or by exile. When times changed under Constantine the Great he returned to Tyre and, according to tradition, governed his diocese for nearly fifty years. He is said to have attended the Council of Nicaea in 325.

When Julian the Apostate came to power he left Tyre again. Seized in the city called Odessos or Odyssopolis in the texts, identified by tradition with modern Varna, he was tortured and died for his faith in Christ at the age of 107, according to the same sources.

Attributed writings and the historical question

Tradition credits him with writings on the Seventy Apostles, those named in the Gospel of Luke (10:1), and on the prophets and apostles, including a "Synopsis" with a list of the Seventy; some sources also speak of theological works written in Greek and Latin. Scholars today regard these writings as pseudepigraphal and call their author Pseudo-⁠Dorotheus. They matter above all for the legends of the apostolic origin of the see of Constantinople.

It should be said that the historian Eusebius of Caesarea mentions a Dorotheus, a learned priest of Antioch who knew Hebrew and Greek learning and was a eunuch from birth; the emperor put him in charge of the purple dye works at Tyre. Eusebius, however, does not call him bishop of Tyre and mentions no martyrdom under Julian. He also names another Dorotheus from the emperor's household who suffered under Diocletian, and treats him as a different person. For this reason the existence of Dorotheus as bishop of Tyre and the details of his martyrdom, his age, the place and the course of events, are known only from late tradition.

Veneration

Saint Dorotheus is commemorated by the Orthodox Church on 5 June; in the Serbian Orthodox Church the day is 5 June by the church calendar and 18 June by the Gregorian.