Theodosius of Manyava

Venerable Theodosius of Manyava (died 24 September 1629) was one of the founders and the second abbot of the Manyava Skete, a monastery of solitude in the Carpathian Mountains of western Ukraine. He succeeded Venerable Job of Manyava as abbot, led the skete for eight years and was regarded by his contemporaries as an angel in the flesh. He is commemorated on 24 September, and together with Venerable Job on 24 June, by the old calendar. His canonization is attested for the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Kyiv Patriarchate in 2004; the English source adds that he was also canonized by the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate, which the other sources do not show.

Life

From youth he was drawn to church and spiritual life. He was a hierodeacon when in 1608 he came to Venerable Job, founder of the skete, who at once singled him out from the others, seeing in him great zeal and humility. With God's blessing and the help of the faithful, in a solitary place resembling an island, a monastery was built, and in 1612, on the feast of the Exaltation of the Cross, the monastery church was consecrated. In all the labours and needs of the monastery, Hierodeacon Theodosius was the untiring helper of Venerable Job. When Job went for a time to Kiev to venerate the Venerable Fathers of the Caves, he left Father Theodosius as abbot, telling him to be their shepherd and spiritual father and that he would help him as long as he lived.

At the end of 1621 Venerable Job, aged seventy, fell ill and died on 29 December 1621. Theodosius led the monastery for eight years. He bore manfully the hardships of the times, the persecution of the Orthodox by the Jesuits, governed the monastery wisely, increased the brethren, built the great church of the Exaltation and received stauropegion from Patriarch Timothy of Constantinople. In 1628 he took part in the first synod of the Kyivan metropolis after the Union of Brest, called by Metropolitan Job Boretsky at the Saint Michael's Golden-⁠Domed Monastery in Kyiv. Word of his strict and virtuous life spread through the Carpathians, Galicia, Volhynia, Bukovina, Moldavia and Romania. The spiritual authority of Abbot Theodosius and the strict rule of his community brought them much respect from other Orthodox monasteries. At the synod of 1628 Abbot Theodosius and his community were chosen as the leading monastery, the prot, over another 556 monasteries of western Ukraine and Moldavia, among them Suceava and Neamț. Metropolitan Peter Mohyla wrote that whoever wishes to see God's servants in human form should go to the Carpathians, where two hundred angels in human flesh have devoted their lives to God.

He fell asleep in peace in 1629 and was buried beside his teacher, Job. The large tombstone with an Orthodox cross that covered them is kept and venerated at the Manyava Skete.

Veneration

On 15 July 2004 the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Kyiv Patriarchate numbered Venerable Job and Theodosius of Manyava among the saints for veneration throughout the Church and entered their names in the calendar. Their relics are kept in the cathedral of the Exaltation. The commemoration of Theodosius is on 24 September, that of Job on 29 December, and their joint commemoration on 24 June (7 July).