 |
| St. Theodore of Sykeon (Feast Day - April 22) |
When he was about twelve years old an epidemic of bubonic plague fell upon the village and it attacked him along with the others so that he came near to dying. They took him to the shrine of Saint John the Baptist near the village and laid him at the entrance to the sanctuary, and above him where the cross was set there hung an icon of our Savior Jesus Christ. As he was suffering great pain from the plague suddenly drops of dew fell upon him from the icon, and immediately by the grace of God, freed from his suffering, he recovered and returned to his home.
As Theodore was sleeping at night with his mother and the women who lived with her, Christ's martyr, George, came to him, and, steeping all the others in deep slumber, woke him up. The first few nights he came in the form of the Stephen whom we have already mentioned, and later, in his own person, and said to him, 'Get up, master Theodore, the dawn has risen, let us go and pray at the shrine of Saint George'. Theodore got up readily and with great joy and the Saint led him away from the house up to his shrine, while it was still dark, so that the boy beheld some of the temptations caused by the demons, for the wicked demons, the enemies of truth, appeared on either side of him in the semblance of wolves and other wild beasts, and with gaping mouths they rushed upon him as though to kill him, in order that they might cause him through fear to give up his good purpose. But Christ's martyr took hold of him and, like a man wielding a sword, chased them from him, so that Theodore was no whit alarmed by the sight of the wild beasts but became even more zealous and never missed his visits to the shrine.
The Life of St. Theodore of Sykeon (Ch. 8).