Theodore the Sacristan

Gregory the Great wrote that Saint Peter appeared to Theodore clad in white vestments.

Theodore the Sacristan (Latin: Theodorus) was a sixth-century[1] sacristan in the Church of St. Peter in Rome. He is mentioned in the writings of Gregory the Great, and was later venerated as a saint.

Life

What is known of Theodore's life comes from Gregory the Great's Dialogues, where he appears in Book III, Chapter 24.[2] There, Gregory records that Theodore once rose very early in the morning in order to tend the lamps that hung by the door of the basilica. He was up on a ladder that he used when refilling the lamps with oil, when Saint Peter appeared to him vested in a white stole. The saint asked him, "Theodore, why have you risen so early?" and disappeared.[2] Theodore was afterwards struck by great fear, and in his shock was unable to rise from his bed for the next several days.[2]

Gregory goes on to editorialize on the encounter, saying that the apparition was a sign of Saint Peter's favor towards Theodore: "The blessed Apostle wished to show those who served him that whatever they did for his honor, he always and unceasingly observed it, for the recompense of their reward."[3] When the interlocutor of the Dialogues, Peter the Deacon, questions why Theodore would have been shocked and sickened by having seen Saint Peter, Gregory replies with a citation from Scripture in which the prophet Daniel is likewise shocked into illness by a troubling vision: "And I Daniel languished, and was sick for some days: [...] and I was astonished at the vision, and there was none that could interpret it" (Daniel 8:27).

Gregory mentions Theodore alongside another saintly sacristan of St. Peter's, Abundius.

Theodore died in 560.[4] His body is believed to have been laid to rest in the basilica where he served, although the precise place is not known.[5]

Veneration

Theodore is commemorated in the Roman Martyrology on December 26, which records the following:

An 1805 source, however, lists his feast day on February 11, noting that the feast was kept on that day at St. Peter's Basilica.[7] Before the new basilica was built, there used to be an image of him in one of the chapels in front of the portico.[4]

Further reading

  • McCready, William David (1989). Signs of sanctity: miracles in the thought of Gregory the Great. Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies. ISBN 9780888440914.

References

  1. ↑ Bunson, Matthew; Bunson, Margaret; Bunson, Stephen (2003). Our Sunday Visitor's Encyclopedia of Saints. Huntington, IN: Our Sunday Visitor. p. 789.
  2. 1 2 3 Gardner, Edmund G., ed. (1911). "Of Theodorus, Keeper of St. Peter's Church, in the City of Rome". Dialogues. London: Philip Lee Warner.
  3. ↑ Clark, Francis (1987). The Pseudo-Gregorian Dialogues. II. Leiden: E. J. Brill. p. 508.
  4. 1 2 Sicari, Giovanni. "San Teodoro". Reliquie Insigni e "Corpi Santi" a Roma (in Italian). Retrieved March 17, 2016.
  5. ↑ Piazza, Carlo Bartolomeo (1687). Efemeride Vaticana per i Pregi Ecclesiastici d'Ogni Giorno dell'Augustissima Basilica di S. Pietro (in Italian). Rome: Eredi del Corbelletti. p. 759. Il Corpo di questo Santo si crede sepolto in questa S. Basilica, della quale fù Ministro, & Operario tanto diligente, quantunque non se ne sappia il luogo.
  6. ↑ Martyrologium Romanum (in Latin). Venice: Nicolò Pezzana. 1784. p. 253.
  7. ↑ Partenio, Mariano (1805). Adami, Leonardo, ed. Diario sacro del chiarissimo Giuseppe Mariano Partenio (in Italian). Rome: Luigi Perego Salvioni. pp. 191–193.
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