Theotimus of Tomis

Saint Theotimus of Tomis was bishop of Tomis in Lesser Scythia (today's Dobruja) from 392 to 403 (according to some sources until his death, in 407 or at the latest 412). He was an ecclesiastical writer, a friend of Saint John Chrysostom and a missionary among the Huns. He is commemorated on 20 April, in the calendar of the Romanian Orthodox Church in first place on this day, with a troparion, kontakion and akathist composed in his honour.

Life and ministry

The year of his birth is not known. The historian Sozomen says he was a Scythian, and other sources, born in Dacia Pontica, count him partly Roman or even Slavic. He entered a local monastery, "on the border of Cassian and the Caves", the same one in which Saints John Cassian and Germanus had lived before him. According to Sozomen, from the time he devoted himself earnestly to Christian philosophy he always wore his hair long. He lived simply, eating not at fixed hours but when he felt hunger or thirst; Sozomen holds that to yield to these demands from necessity and not from love of pleasure is the part of a philosopher. The year of his ordination as bishop is not known, but in 392 Saint Jerome, in his book "On Illustrious Men", already mentions him as an ecclesiastical writer and bishop.

Sozomen says in the Ecclesiastical History (VII, 26) that the church of Tomis and all the churches of Scythia were then under the government of Theotimus, a Scythian brought up in philosophy, whose virtues had won the admiration of the Huns on the banks of the Ister, so that they called him "the god of the Romans", for they had seen divine deeds done through him. It is told that one day, travelling toward the country of the barbarians, he saw some of them approaching. His companions began to lament, giving themselves up for lost, but he only got down from his horse and prayed, and the barbarians passed by without seeing him, his companions or the horses they had dismounted from. Because these tribes often devastated Scythia by raids, he tried to soften their ferocity by giving them food and gifts. One of the barbarians, thinking him rich, wanted to take him prisoner and, leaning on his shield as he did when parleying with enemies, raised his right hand to cast a rope over him, but his hand stayed stretched in the air, and he was not released from his bonds until his companions begged the bishop to pray to God for him. As a missionary he constantly went to the neighbouring Huns, preaching Christianity, and as a peacemaker he invited them to his home, gave them gifts and strove to teach them gentleness and to end enmity between the peoples.

The councils

In 400 he took part, with Saint John Chrysostom, among 70 bishops, in the council of Ephesus, called because a complaint had reached Constantinople against Metropolitan Antoninus of Ephesus. The council found many cases of simony and deposed the bishops guilty of it, both those who had ordained for money and those who had been so ordained.

In 403, at the invitation of Theophilus of Alexandria, Epiphanius of Cyprus came to Constantinople to take part in the Synod of the Oak and asked the bishops to sign a decree forbidding the books of Origen. Theotimus opposed it, saying, according to Sozomen, that it was not right to insult the memory of one long dead, that it was not without blasphemy to attack the conclusion the ancients had reached, and that their decisions should be kept. Then he drew out a book of Origen he had brought with him and, reading a passage useful for the Church, showed that those who condemn such sentiments are in danger of insulting the very subjects the book treats. He held that Origen had died in right faith and that there was no bad teaching in his books.

Writings and his end

Jerome says that Theotimus wrote brief, aphoristic treatises in the form of dialogues, in an old style. His writings have not survived whole, only fragments. Leontius, who lived not long after him, copied short passages from two of them, "On the Teaching of the Saviour" and "Against Idols". John of Damascus put into the "Sacred Parallels" several passages from the latter and from three others: "On Genesis", "On the Interpretation of the Words: 'You shall yet bring your gift to the altar'" and "On Fasting". Theotimus died at the latest in 412. His Life is published in the Acta Sanctorum on 20 April.