Confession and Martyrdom
According to her vita, Theodula was brought before the city prefect of Anazarbus, named Pelagius, who is remembered in the account as a cruel man. Ordered to worship the pagan gods, she declared that she was a Christian, that her name meant 'servant of God', and that she worshipped the One True God and would not bow to a mere stone.
The narrative relates a sequence of tortures from which she emerged unharmed. By tradition she destroyed an idol of the emperor Hadrian by breathing upon it so that it crumbled to dust; she was cast into a blazing oven yet was not consumed; and she was stretched on a red-hot metal plate with boiling substances poured over her, after which the plate is said to have shattered. The synaxarion relates that the prefect Pelagius, scorched in the course of these events, died of fright.
The Companions
Helladius, by the account a torturer who had acted against Theodula to win the prefect's favor, was converted through her prayers and words. He confessed the True God before the prefect and was beheaded with a sword, his body cast into the sea.
The synaxarion relates that, witnessing the miracles surrounding Theodula, many came to believe in Christ, among them the respected citizens Macarius and Evagrius. By tradition Theodula, Macarius, Evagrius, and others who had believed were thrown together into a heated oven, where they suffered martyrdom. The four are commemorated jointly on February 5.
Sources and Veneration
As a martyr of the early fourth century, Theodula belongs to the undivided Church and is venerated in both the Orthodox and the Roman Catholic traditions. The secondary sources diverge on the naming of her companions: the OCA synaxarion and this entry's source record name Helladius, Macarius, and Evagrius, while some accounts list a companion named Boethus in place of Helladius.
