Theodora

Life

Theodora is believed to have been born around 500, though the exact year and place of her birth are uncertain. Various traditions name Manbij (Mabbug) in Syria, Cyprus, or Paphlagonia as her birthplace. The principal source for her life before her marriage is the Secret History by her contemporary, the historian Procopius, a work regarded as containing much defamatory material. According to this account, Theodora worked on the stage and later accompanied an official to North Africa. After parting from him, she is said to have returned to the capital by way of Alexandria and Antioch.

After returning to the capital, she met Justinian, the nephew of Emperor Justin I. The two could not marry at once, however, because a law prohibited persons of senatorial rank from marrying actresses. After this law was amended, they are believed to have married in 523 or 525. When her husband ascended the throne in 527, she became empress. She died in Constantinople on June 28, 548, probably of cancer, and was buried in the Church of the Holy Apostles.

Ministry and Achievements

• Politics: She was her husband's most trusted adviser. In a novel (an imperial decree) of 535, Justinian stated that he had consulted the empress, and he required provincial governors to swear an oath of loyalty to her as well. A well-known account relates that during the Nika riots in the capital in 532, she persuaded the emperor, who was preparing to flee, to stand his ground against the revolt.
• Church: In 451 the Council of Chalcedon confessed that Christ possesses two natures, divine and human, in one person (see the two natures of Christ). Those who rejected this decision and held that the two natures were united into one are known as Miaphysites. The Miaphysites suffered persecution as the imperial court established the Chalcedonian faith as orthodoxy. Theodora provided financial support and protection to exiled Miaphysite leaders and monks, and she lodged deposed patriarchs in the Palace of Hormisdas in the capital. Some scholars hold that Theodora was herself a Miaphysite; others argue that she merely showed them pastoral favor as part of a mission of reconciliation entrusted to her by her husband.
• Society: She is known to have worked to expand the legal rights of women. According to tradition, she was responsible for laws prohibiting forced prostitution and founded a refuge for prostitutes.
• A contemporary mosaic of Theodora survives in the Basilica of San Vitale in Ravenna, Italy.

Influence on the Korean Church

No activities directly connected with the Korean church are known. In Korea she is mentioned chiefly in church history, in discussions of the age of Justinian and the Christological controversies that followed the Council of Chalcedon.

Assessment

• The Orthodox Church venerates Theodora as a saint together with her husband and commemorates them on November 14. Orthodox hagiography relates that Theodora repented of the sins of her youth and of Miaphysitism and lived a chaste life after becoming empress.
• The Syriac Orthodox Church and other churches that did not accept the Council of Chalcedon remember Theodora as the empress who protected a persecuted church. In this tradition, a legend also arose portraying her as the virtuous daughter of a Miaphysite priest.
• Criticism: Procopius's Secret History portrays Theodora's youth and her years as empress in extremely negative terms. Modern scholarship regards the work as containing much exaggeration and slander.
• Protestantism, which does not venerate saints, treats Theodora as a figure of church and political history.