ABSTRACT
In her Alexiad, Anna Comnena wrote of a sanctuary in Constantinople, much frequented particularly on Sundays, which had been built in honour of ‘Theodore greatest of the martyrs’.1 It would have been the celebrated church in the suburb of Bathys Ryax,2 probably built by Justinian during the reign of the Emperor Justin, where, according to Nicetas Choniates writing in 1182, the emperor went for the commemoration of St Theodore during Lent.3 There can be no doubt that the saint in question was Theodore Tiron, because his synaxis was celebrated on the first Saturday of Lent.4 It is a stroke of luck for us that there exists a mosaic icon, now in the Hermitage, which must be a copy of the one venerated in this church, because the legend qualifies Theodore’s name with the words √ BA£HPIAKH™ (more correctly spelt ‚·©˘ÚÚ˘·Î›Ù˘) – of Bathys Ryax.5
