Theodora of Nizhny Novgorod

Venerable Theodora of Nizhny Novgorod was abbess of the Conception (Zachatievsky) convent in Nizhny Novgorod, the daughter of a boyar of Tver. In the world she was called Vassa or Vasilisa, by some supposition Anastasia Ivanovna. She was born around 1331 and died on 15 April 1378, in the 47th year of her life. She is venerated only locally, on 16 April and 28 March (probably the day of the translation of her relics).

According to the Tver Paterikon, while still a girl she learned all letters, the Old and New Testaments, and wished to enter monastic life, but her parents were unwilling and gave her, at 13, in marriage to Prince Andrey Konstantinovich of Suzdal and Nizhny Novgorod. In marriage she gave no heed to vain living, led a pious life devoted to fasting, abstinence, prayer and almsgiving, and wasted her body by the severity of her life; under bright clothing she wore a hair shirt.

At the beginning of the second half of the fourteenth century she founded in Nizhny Novgorod the convent of the Conception, standing on the very bank of the Volga, not far from the cape at the mouth of the river Pochayna. After the death of her husband, who had been a monk and schemamonk in the last years of his life, she received in 1367 the monastic tonsure with the name Theodora; according to some sources first with the name Vassa, with Theodora given at the tonsure in the schema. She distributed all her property to churches, monasteries and the poor, freed her servants and became abbess of the convent she had founded. She spent her life in prayer, labour, fasting, reading divine writings, in humility and tears, supporting herself by her handiwork and caring for the adornment of the convent and the growth of the sisterhood, which numbered up to 160. The example of her life drew many pious girls and widows to the convent.

She was buried in the convent she founded, but after the closure of the convent her body was moved to the Transfiguration cathedral of Nizhny Novgorod and laid beside her husband's tomb. The Serbian source, however, says her relics rest in the cathedral church of her convent, which does not agree with the other source.