Theodosius of Oria

Theodosius of Oria was bishop of Brindisi and Oria in southern Italy in the 9th century, and a papal envoy. He reposed at Oria around 890. The Roman Catholic Church remembers him on 30 August.

He is thought to have been trained at Oria by Eastern hermits and monks and may have been a young courtier at the imperial court in Constantinople. Oria was an important Byzantine stronghold, and the see of Brindisi had been moved there after the Arab conquest of 838; though the city was under Byzantine rule, the see followed the Latin rite and submission to the pope of Rome. Theodosius mediated in the conflicts between Byzantines and Lombards and between the Churches of East and West. In 884 Pope Hadrian III sent him as apocrisiarius to Constantinople to hand Patriarch Photius a synodal letter on the faith and the Filioque. He returned, it seems, with much wealth and probably a letter from the emperor Basil I, for which Pope Stephen V thanked him. As a reward he received relics of Saints Chrysanthus and Daria, for which he built a place of worship, perhaps the predecessor of the present cathedral.

In 887 he held a local synod in which he told his priests to remain celibate, perhaps in contrast to the Greek priests of nearby regions. He placed in a chapel the relics of Saint Barsanuphius, the hermit of Gaza, and obtained from Benevento the relics of Saint Leucius of Brindisi, for which he built a basilica. He was regarded as the protector of his city.

He is a saint of the West; no Orthodox synodal canonization is known.