Theodora – The Empress Who Changed History
Most church history books leave out the stories of the thousands of women who had a part to play in God’s kingdom. Over the course of the last few months on this blog we have seen that even in the earliest centuries, women evangelized, prayed, taught, preached, went on pilgrimages, reigned over kingdoms, founded monasteries, and took care of the poor. These women contributed greatly to the Kingdom of God, not so they could be remembered, but so they could serve the Lord Jesus by serving others.
We have been presenting a series on women in the Medieval Era. We’ve covered mostly stories about women who lived in the West because we have much more information about them. However, there does exist a fair amount of information about the Byzantine Empire, so in the last several weeks we have taken a trip towards the East to look at the lives of three Byzantine empresses – Irene, Euphrosyne, and Theodora (9th century). These three women were powerful, courageous and opportunistic. Through their leadership they put into place the laws that altered history. They dared to challenge the ban on images (iconoclasm) and restore the use of icons in worship that is still a part of the Easter Orthodox church today.
Note on Icons:
In the early church when copies of the Scriptures were scarce, leaders felt that the pictures of saints helped the common folk to learn the story of the gospel. At this time, images were being used in both the Eastern and Western churches. Indeed, Pope Gregory the Great (Rome) said that religious images were the “Bible of the illiterate”. Some theologians were against using images in worship. They pointed out that starting in the Old Testament, images had been forbidden by God. These theologians reasoned that God had given us a written word for a purpose. They worried that the images would be too easily worshipped in place of God.
Artists continued to produce beautiful paintings and drawings with a religious theme. Most people just revered them, but in Byzantium by the eighth century the church decided that using images in the worship service was idolatry.
In 730 AD Leo III issued an order imposing iconoclasm (the ban of icons) on the Eastern Orthodox church. All icons were to be destroyed and those people found with them were to be punished. In 754 AD Constantine V further established iconoclasm when he declared that the only true image of Christ was in the Eucharist (the host at communion). By the time Irene arrived in Constantinople in 769 AD, iconoclasm was the law of the land. In our last few posts we have seen how Empress Irene and then Euphrosyne worked to restore the icons in worship. When Theodora became empress there was still a clash going on between iconoclasts and iconophiles. In the ninth century Theodora would enact the final laws that would ensure the adoration of icons in worship that would last until today.
Theodora – Byzantine Empress (815 – 867)
Let’s see how this third empress – Theodora – fits into the 8th and 9th century history of Byzantium. We saw in an earlier post that Irene became the sole ruler of Byzantium as Empress mother/Regent of Byzantium when her husband Leo IV died in 780 AD.[1] Irene’s one son, Constantine VI was too young to ascend to the throne and so Irene assumed power. She would prove to be an effective and popular ruler, much loved by her people.
In 787, Irene found the future wife for her son, Mary of Amnia. Constantine VI and Mary were married, and they had two daughters – Irene (named after her paternal grandmother) and Euphrosyne. When Mary did not have a son, Constantine VI divorced her and sent Mary and his two daughters into exile on the island of Prinkipo. Granddaughter Irene died during their banishment. Euphrosyne grew up in her confinement believing that she would live in a monastery until she died.
While Mary and the girls were in exile, Empress Irene and Constantine VI fought for control of the throne with Irene gaining control. The populace welcomed Irene mostly because of Constantine’s divorce. They did not protest when Constantine was exiled in 797. Irene reigned for five more years. In October 802 there was a military supported coup d’etat. Irene was forcibly removed from the throne. The finance minister, Nikephoros assumed the throne, and it seemed to be the end of the dynasty that had begun with Justinian in the sixth century.
After the coup d’etat of 802, when Empress Irene was forced off of the throne, Nikephoros I reigned from 802 to 811. He did not succeed in any great accomplishments. He was killed by Bulgars after a battle with them in 811. The throne was fought over, and Michael I became emperor, but reigned only 2 years. Three junior military officers plotted to oust him. Each one wanted to be emperor, but Leo the Armenian prevailed, becoming Leo V. He reigned from 813 – 820. What goes around comes around and another military coup saw Leo assassinated and a conspirator named Michael ascended to the throne as Michael II.
Michael II began his reign in 820 at about age forty. He knew that he was not royalty. One wonders if he was worried about plots against him since he was now the fourth emperor in a row who attained the throne through treachery and murder rather than legal hereditary descent. Anyway, he decided to fix the problem by marrying someone who was royalty. Enter – Euphrosyne. Euphrosyne had been raised with iconophile sympathies. She kept her feelings to herself. She had no children. When Michael died and her stepson, Theophilos became emperor in 829, Euphrosyne arranged a marriage for him.
Euphrosyne found a number of eligible girls and apparently let Theophilos choose between the finalists. He chose Theodora.
Theodora was born in Paphlagonia to Marinos and Florina. They were from the village of Ebissa. Marinos held some sort of position in the military. He died around 830 leaving Florina with six children. Theodora was probably the fourth. There were no dates recorded, but if Theodora was in her mid to late teens when she married Theophilos in 830 AD she was probably born around 815 AD.
We know very little about Theodora’s childhood. She was most likely brought up as a typical young woman learning domestic duties. She may have been taught to spin thread and weave cloth. That was the trade of many people in Paphlagonia. Other trades that she would have been familiar with were farming and fishing. The Orthodox faith was practiced by the people of Paphlagonia. Theodora would have been familiar with all of tenets and practices of her religion. Her parents were iconophiles and so Theodora was sympathetic to the use of images in the worship service.
Theophilos chose Theodora to be his bride and the two were married. Theodora was crowned Empress on June 5, 830. For the next ten years her life was filled with the joy of having children. Her first three children were daughters, Thekla, Anna, and Anastasia. Theophilos was very proud of his daughters, even featuring all of them on a royal coin, but he was especially overjoyed when his son, Constantine was born in 834. Unfortunately, the next year Constantine got away from his nurse somehow and fell into a palace cistern and drowned. Theophilos and Theodora were devastated.
The emperor and empress held out hope for another son but had two more daughters, Maria and Pulcheria. Sadly, Maria died in 839. Finally, on January 9, 840 Theodora had another son and he was named Michael III. Theophilos had Michael christened and crowned at the Christmas feast. This was in keeping with the tradition of having important events occurring on the day of the birth of Jesus.
During this decade Theodora was mostly occupied with the children. Privately, she remained committed to icons. She often took her daughters to visit their grandmother, Euphrosyne for iconophile instruction.[1] At this time iconoclasm was the law of the land and many iconophiles were severely punished. Theophilos tried to stop iconophile veneration by having all of the icons in Constantinople destroyed. Church leaders who objected to this were exiled. Others were tortured with beatings and imprisonment. Theodora did what she could to relieve their suffering. She often approached Theophilos to convince him to have mercy on men who were being tortured for their faith. On several occasions Theodora succeeded in having Theophilos change the death penalty to exile or imprisonment.
Besides working on the home front to destroy icons, Theophilos was busy fighting battles to protect Constantinople from her enemies and to enlarge his territory. The
results were mixed. Then on the eve of peace negotiations with one of his enemies he learned that he was dying of dysentery. He called for Theodora and Michael to explain his wishes. On January 20, 842, not yet twenty-nine years old he died. The heir, Michael III was just two years old. Theodora realized that she needed to protect Michael’s throne for at least fourteen more years. She began a regency that lasted until 856 AD.
Next time, in Part 2 we will learn how Theodora ruled Byzantium and made lasting changes for the Orthodox church.
[1] See post on March 24, 2020, “Euphrosyne – Byzantine Empress – Part 2”
[1] See posts on February 13, 2020 (Irene Part 1) and February 25, 2020 (Irene Part 2) on this blog site.
