Theodosia (Euphrosyne)

Holy Venerable Theodosia (Euphrosyne), princess, was named Rostislava and received at Holy Baptism the name Theodosia. She was the daughter of Mstislav the Daring, wife of Grand Prince Yaroslav Vsevolodovich and mother of several sons, among them two saints, Theodore and Alexander Nevsky. At the end of her life she received tonsure with the name Euphrosyne and reposed on 4 May 1244.

The tomb

In the Yuriev monastery in Novgorod, by the south wall of the cathedral, level with the right choir stand, there is a tomb covered with a slab of white marble, with the inscription: "In the year 1244, on 5 May, in Great Novgorod there reposed in the Lord the blessed grand princess Theodosia, the most honourable wife of Grand Prince Yaroslav Vsevolodovich, with whom she lived piously and pleasing to God, and bore by him the holy right-⁠believing princes Theodore and Alexander Nevsky and seven other sons."

Life

The life we rely on says that the position of a woman in ancient Rus was modest and unobtrusive: she did not appear in public life, but within the family circle she had the more influence, for the moral and religious upbringing of the children depended chiefly on her. Her husband, Yaroslav, famous in history, had undeniably noble qualities, but an enterprising and daring spirit drew him to constant labours and dangers, almost always on distant campaigns and in bloody battles. How much anxiety and how many tears in solitude the princess must have had, thinking of her absent husband. Then a rift came between him and his subjects, the restless Novgorodians. The fruit of the blessed marriage was seven sons and all of them were a comfort to her, but dearest of all, her joy, was the firstborn, Theodore Yaroslavich, beautiful in soul and body like an angel of God. Already he was growing up, a bride had been chosen, everything was prepared for the wedding, and on the wedding day came the blow: Theodore died. After the death of her firstborn, the princess naturally transferred her affection to her second son, Alexander, later the hero of the Neva and a servant of God. And this love too was for her a source of many cares: how many times did his righteousness and steadfastness raise up rebellion against him among the Novgorodians, how many times, carried away by courage, did he risk his life in unequal battles.

The Mongol invasion

Then the terrible Mongol hordes swept over Rus, with unparalleled devastation and bloodshed. The danger approached the borders of Novgorod. Yaroslav, with his eldest sons and all his kin, had to go to Batu's camp on the lower Volga. In her living faith, in her deep piety, she found strength to bear all these trials with submission to the will of God, and the more sorrow pressed her heart, the more she turned to the Lord, to find consolation in Him. In her soul the wish matured to withdraw wholly from the world in which she had endured so many dangers and griefs and to give herself to prayer. In her husband's lifetime it was hard to fulfil it, but, feeling her strength fail, she overcame this obstacle and hurried to carry out her thought. Ill, she went to the monastery where the relics of her beloved firstborn, Saint Prince Theodore, lay, the monastery of the Holy Great Martyr George, on the swift bank of the Volkhov.

The relics and the tomb

For nearly four hundred years the bodies of the blessed princess Theodosia and of Saint Prince Theodore rested inseparably in the monastery of the Holy Great Martyr George; but in 1614, in the time of the Swedish devastation of the Novgorod lands, the relics of Saint Prince Theodore were moved, by order of Metropolitan Isidore of Novgorod, to the Saint Sophia Cathedral, where they rest openly to this day. Since then the blessed princess's tomb has stood alone and as if forgotten, only a plain stone projection from the wall and a marble slab with an inscription mark her place of rest. She is commemorated on 11 July (new style), on a movable day, in the Synaxis of the Saints of Novgorod.