Theodosius of Astrakhan

Holy Hierarch Theodosius of Astrakhan, archbishop, in the world Theodotus, was the son of the priest Chariton of the village of Yakovlevskoe in the Yaroslavl province and his wife Maria. Well educated, at twenty he was ordained priest and assigned to the church of the Holy Right-⁠Believing Princes Boris and Gleb in Yaroslavl. Six years later, after his wife's death, he received monastic tonsure with the name Theodosius, entering the monastery of the Mother of God on the river Tolga. Soon, at the request of the brothers, who saw his pious life, he was made abbot of this monastery. By his labours a new stone church of the monastery was built.

At Astrakhan

After twenty-⁠five years of leading the Tolga monastery, Father Theodosius, with the blessing of Saint Patriarch Job, was sent to the Holy Trinity monastery in Astrakhan, which then belonged spiritually to the diocese of Kazan. He probably arrived in Astrakhan no later than 1594. At Astrakhan the building of the stone cathedrals of the Holy Trinity and of the Dormition had begun, with stones taken from the ruins of the former Tatar capital, Sarai. By the end of the sixteenth century the number of monks of the monastery had grown from twenty-⁠five, in the time of the founder, the Venerable Cyril of Astrakhan (died 1576), to fifty-⁠five. The cells were rebuilt and new service buildings were erected. Abbot Theodosius, in spite of the many obediences laid on the brotherhood, was very exacting in the keeping of the monastic rule. A strict faster and man of prayer, he himself was the first to give an example of spiritual labour. He constantly instructed the brothers to do every task with prayer and never to part from it. In secret he wore heavy iron chains on his body. Under his spiritual supervision another monastery was also built, in honour of the Ascension of the Lord, first mentioned in 1597, built outside the fortress, on the eastern edge of Astrakhan.

First bishop

During the fire of the spring of 1599, when the whole fortress (the White City) burned and the whole Kremlin with the Trinity monastery was threatened, Abbot Theodosius held a service of supplication before the Vladimir icon of the Mother of God, given as a blessing to the city of Astrakhan by Tsar Ivan IV, and the fire was subdued. After the completion of the Dormition Cathedral in 1602, Abbot Theodosius went with holy water to Moscow, to Tsar Boris Godunov, where in the second half of the year he was consecrated the first bishop of Astrakhan (the Astrakhan-⁠Terek diocese had been separated from the metropolis of Kazan). The northern border of his diocese was Saratov, which remained under the omophorion of the bishops of Astrakhan for 177 years (1602 to 1799). Having become bishop, Saint Theodosius finished the Trinity Cathedral and consecrated it on 13 September 1603. In 1604, according to local monastic tradition, he consecrated the church of the Transfiguration of the Saviour monastery and blessed the building of a church of the Ascension with a cemetery for the burial of wayfarers (later the Annunciation convent).

Rebuking the impostor

When in 1604 a man appeared in Polish Ukraine claiming to be Tsarevich Dimitri, placed under church anathema by Patriarch Job's letter, the holy hierarch rebuked the impostor without mercy. He testified that, while still abbot at Tolga, in 1591 he had taken part in the burial of the murdered tsarevich and had clearly seen him dead. In 1605, for refusing to recognize False Dmitry I as tsar, the hierarch suffered persecution from the people of Astrakhan. The clergy of the Dormition Cathedral who tried to defend their hierarch were put to a tormenting death: the cathedral archpriest Thomas and the priest Kondrat were torn by the crowd, hacked and stabbed, and the protodeacon Nicephorus met an even more terrible fate, he was burned. Hierarch Theodosius was shut in the Trinity monastery and then sent to Moscow, where he rebuked the impostor to his face but was not condemned. False Dmitry I, disturbed by the saint's bold word, did not insult him, but did not let him return to Astrakhan either, sending him to the court of the Metropolitan of Kazan. Here the hierarch lived, "preaching and fearlessly uttering many reproaches against the impostor." False Dmitry I tried in vain to win him over. Because he refused to crown and present the tsar's crown to the Catholic Marina Mniszech, the impostor, seeing the saint's firmness, declared him mad. Using the fact that everyone took him for a fool or blessed one, Theodosius, miraculously slipping past the guard assigned to watch him, began to walk about Moscow, in the churches, saying everywhere that Dmitri was not the true tsar but an antichrist sent by the Poles to turn holy Rus to Latinism. His words caused great agitation among the people, many murmured and even wished to beat him, but the Lord guarded and strengthened His faithful servant. The bold preaching of Hierarch Theodosius helped to turn Moscow away from False Dmitry.

Repose and relics

After the death of the impostor (17 May 1606), the saint took part in the transfer of the relics of Tsarevich Dimitri to Moscow. At the church council that elected the Metropolitan of Kazan, Hermogenes, as patriarch, the territorial composition of the diocese of Astrakhan was determined: a vast but sparsely populated region down the Volga, beginning from Saratov, where, besides Saratov, Tsaritsyn, Astrakhan and Terki, there were no other settlements. Falling ill on the way from Moscow to Astrakhan, Saint Theodosius died on 18 December 1607 (old style) at Tsaritsyn. His incorrupt relics were left, because of the unrest, in the only church there, of the Holy Trinity, until the spring of the next year, when they were moved to the Saviour-⁠Transfiguration monastery in Kazan. After the end of the rebellion, at the request of the flock of Astrakhan and according to the saint's will, in 1617 the relics were carried to Astrakhan and, on the way, many miracles and healings came from them. They were placed in the Dormition church of the Astrakhan Kremlin, and after the building of the new cathedral, in 1708, buried in its lower church. The Church's recognition of the holiness of Archbishop Theodosius was first expressed by entering his name in the service to all the saints who shone forth in the Russian land, and in 1999 the local veneration in the diocese of Astrakhan was officially confirmed.

He is commemorated on 31 December (new style), that is 18 December by the old calendar, and on 24 May, in the Synaxis of the Saints of the Astrakhan Metropolis.