Theodora Agaphia

Holy Theodora Agaphia is the name under which the Synaxis of the Saints of Vladimir commemorates two saints of the same ruling family: Grand Princess Agaphia and her daughter Theodora, who perished in 1238 when the Mongol-⁠Tatars took Vladimir. The Church honours them as right-⁠believing princesses.

Agaphia was the daughter of Vsevolod Svyatoslavich Chermny, prince of Chernigov and Kyiv, and of Maria, daughter of King Casimir II of Poland. On 10 April 1211 she married, in the Dormition church in Vladimir, Yuri (George) Vsevolodovich, the future grand prince of Vladimir; they had three or four sons and two daughters. The date and place of her birth are not known.

When the Mongols besieged Vladimir in February 1238, Yuri had gone with his army to the river Sit, and his wife, children and daughters-⁠in-⁠law had stayed in the city. On 7 February Bishop Mitrophan tonsured Agaphia and those around her as monastics; she died in the Dormition cathedral together with her youngest daughter Theodora, her daughters-⁠in-⁠law Maria and Christina, and the bishop. According to the chronicle, the Mongols set fire to the cathedral where they had taken refuge, and all died in smoke and flame; other accounts say they were tortured in Batu's camp. Their remains lie in a walled-⁠up crypt of the Dormition cathedral.

The Church canonized them as right-⁠believing princesses in the Synaxis of the Saints of Vladimir, commemorated on 23 June by the old calendar (6 July by the new). Agaphia is also commemorated on 4 February (17 February by the new calendar). It is said that no old icons or akathists of these saints survive.