Theodore of Amasea - The Two St Theodores

The Two St Theodores

Numerous conflicting legends grew up about the life and martyrdom of St Theodore so that, in order to bring some consistency into the stories, it seems to have been assumed that there must have been two different saints, St Theodore Tiron of Amasea and St Theodore Stratelates of Heraclea.

There is much confusion between these two saints, and each of them is sometimes said to have had a shrine at Euchaita in Pontus. In fact the shrine existed before any distinction was made between these two saints. The separate shrine of Stratelates was at Euchaneia, a different place. They were distinguished at least by the 9th century. However it is now generally accepted, at least in the west, that there was in fact only one St Theodore. Hippolyte Delehaye wrote in 1909 that the existence of the second Theodore had not been historically established, and Walter in 2003 wrote that "the Stratelates is surely a fiction".

There were several churches dedicated to both saints, Theodore Tiron and Theodore Stratelates. For instance at Dobarsko and at Serres, at the monastery of Kuprianou at Constantinople and at Pergamon.