Theodore of the Jordan

Venerable Theodore of the Jordan (Theodore the Hermit) was a hermit in the desert of the Jordan in the sixth century and is a saint of the Orthodox Church. The Orthodox Church commemorates him on 5 June (18 June by the new calendar, in the Serbian Church), as does the Catholic Church. The Serbian source says that he died in the year 583.

The Russian source calls him a eunuch. From his youth he left worldly life, received monasticism and withdrew into the desert of the Jordan, as a solitary monk, answering the call of Christ. As a fruit of the Holy Spirit, he received the gift of working miracles, for the sake of those whom God brought into his life to serve.

It is told that, while he was travelling by ship to Constantinople, the ship went off course and the drinking water ran out. When all the passengers were near death from thirst, Theodore raised his hands to heaven, prayed to God and marked the sea water with the sign of the cross. Then he told the sailors to draw water from the sea and drink. And when they drank, the water was sweet. When all those present began to bow before Theodore, he begged them to give thanks not to him but to God, who had worked this miracle out of his love for mankind, and who had pity on the intense thirst of men. Demetrius of Rostov related the incident in the same way.