Theodore of Vršac

Saint Theodore, bishop of Vršac, hieromartyr, was the Serbian Orthodox bishop of Vršac and leader of the Banat Uprising against the Ottoman occupation, in 1594, and died that year. The Serbian Orthodox Church commemorates him on 16 May by the old calendar (29 May on the new style). The city of Vršac celebrates him as its patron, as its slava.

In the midst of the Long War (1593 to 1606), after talks with Sigismund Báthory, Theodore organized the uprising together with Sava Ban and the voivode Velja Mironić. The uprising succeeded in liberating the villages of the Banat, with Vršac. The Serb rebels used icon depictions of Saint Sava as war flags, to strengthen them in battle. Sinan Pasha of Temesvar captured Theodore and had him flayed and burned alive. One source says only that he was flayed alive in a most cruel manner. In the same year, as a response to the uprising, the remains of Saint Sava were burned on the Vračar hill by order of Sinan Pasha, who fought the rebels.

Theodore was proclaimed a saint of the Serbian Orthodox Church, as Holy Hieromartyr Theodore, Bishop of Vršac. The sources do not agree about the day of the canonization: according to one, on 29 May 1994, according to another, on 26 May 1994, in the year when four hundred years had passed since his suffering and the burning of the relics of Saint Sava.