Dictionary of Christian Biography and Literature to the End of the Sixth Century/Theodorus, bishop of Tyana

Theodorus (50), bp. of Tyana, a fellow countryman and correspondent of Gregory Nazianzen. He was a native of Arianzus. Accompanying Gregory to Constantinople in 379, he shared in the ill-treatment received there from the Arian monks and rabble. He subsequently became bp. of Tyana, but not before 381. After Gregory returned to Arianzus many letters of friendship passed between him and Theodore. On the attempt of the Apollinarians to perpetuate the schism at Nazianzus, by appointing a bishop of their own, Gregory wrote very earnestly ( 382) to Theodore, calling on him, as metropolitan, to appoint a bishop to replace him, as age and ill-health forbad his efficient superintendence of the church there (Ep. 88). After being compelled reluctantly to resume the care of Nazianzus, Gregory felt reason to complain of Theodore apparently siding with his enemies, and expressed his feelings with vehemence (Ep. 83). Their friendship, however, was not weakened, and on the completion, in 382, of the Philocalia—the collection of extracts from Origen made by him and Basil many years before—Gregory sent Theodore a copy as an Easter gift (Ep. 115 al. 87). Theodore was one of the bishops attending the council summoned against Chrysostom by Theophilus at the end of 403. Palladius describes him as a man of much wisdom and authority, who, when he discovered the malicious intention of Theophilus and his partisans, retired to his diocese soon after his arrival (Pallad. p. 23). The Theodorus to whom Chrysostom addressed his Ep. 112 has been identified with Theodore of Tyana by the second council of Constantinople (Labbe, v. 490). Tillemont decides (xi. 608) for Theodore of Mopsuestia.

[E.V.]