Theodosius of Vladimir

Holy Hieromartyr Theodosius of Vladimir, an abbot, lived in the first third of the thirteenth century. He was an abbot and served in the city of Vladimir, most probably the head of the cathedral of the Saviour (the Saviour-⁠Transfiguration cathedral by the Golden Gate). He perished in the Tatar assault on Vladimir on 7 February 1238.

Count M. V. Tolstoy tells of the tragedy of 1238: on the Sunday of Meatfare, 7 February, soon after Matins, the Tatar attack began. Bishop Mitrophan, with the family of the grand prince and the people, shut himself in the Dormition Cathedral. Those gathered received monastic tonsure from Bishop Mitrophan, confessed, received the Holy Mysteries and prepared for death. The Tatars took the city, broke down the church doors and lit fires around it and inside it. Bishop Mitrophan said, "Lord, stretch out Your invisible hand and receive in peace the souls of Your servants," and then blessed all for their inevitable death. All who were in the cathedral died from the smoke and the swords of the enemy.

Saint Theodosius, as one of the most respected churchmen of Vladimir, is mentioned alongside Bishop Mitrophan, the holy hieromartyr, in a version of the chronicle entry of 1238 on the capture and devastation of Vladimir, as it took shape in the Vladimir Chronicle Compilation of 1281: "And there were slain Pachomius, archimandrite of the monastery of the Nativity of the Mother of God, and Daniel, abbot of the Dormition, Theodosius of the Saviour and the other abbots, and monks and nuns, and priests and deacons." He was numbered among the saints in the Synaxis of the Saints of Vladimir in 1982.