Timothy

Timothy was bishop of Tomis (modern Constanța) in the first half of the fifth century and took part in the Third Ecumenical Council at Ephesus in 431. He is named in the Romanian Paterikon and venerated by the faithful, without synodal canonization; the sources available to us give no day of commemoration.

His origin is not known. The Paterikon supposes that he was born south of the Danube and trained spiritually in one of the monasteries of Cappadocia, where monastic life had flourished thanks to Saint Basil the Great. Like his predecessors Vetranio, Gerontius and Theotimus I, he was a well-⁠prepared Orthodox theologian, familiar with the dogmas and with the disputes then troubling the Byzantine Empire.

In his diocese, which covered present-⁠day Dobruja, he built and renewed churches and monasteries, supported the local Daco-⁠Roman monasticism and catechized the migrating peoples, Goths and Huns, who were still pagan. At Ephesus in 431 he signed the twelve anathemas of Saint Cyril of Alexandria and the condemnation of the heretic Nestorius, as the 170th signatory of the acts.

After an episcopate of more than ten years he reposed in peace, and is counted among the venerable fathers of the Church of Scythia Minor.