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Greek Name Days

9th century

Saint Theodora the Empress

Byzantine empress who restored the veneration of icons in 843.

11 February

Biography

Theodora was born in 815 in Ebissa, Paphlagonia. In 830 she married Emperor Theophilos, an iconoclast, while she herself continued to secretly venerate icons.

After Theophilos died in 842, she became regent for their young son Michael III. In 843 she convened a council that restored the veneration of icons, an event that established the Sunday of Orthodoxy.

In 856 her son deposed her, and she was later confined to a convent with her daughters, where she became a nun. She died in 867.

Sources and further reading