Venerable Theosterictus the Confessor

Theosterictus (Theosteriktos) was a monk and abbot of the Pelekete monastery in Bithynia, a community in Asia Minor that became a center of resistance to Byzantine Iconoclasm. By tradition he was born at Triglia (Tirilye) in Bithynia and entered the monastery of Saint John the Theologian, also called Pelekete from its setting on a steep, axe-hewn rock, where the brethren in time elected him abbot. He is venerated as a confessor for the mutilation and long imprisonment he endured rather than renouncing the veneration of the holy icons.

The monastery was attacked during the iconoclast persecution under the Emperor Constantine V Copronymos (741–775), when the general Michael Lachanodrakon assailed icon-venerating communities. The synaxarion relates that soldiers fell upon Pelekete during the services of Holy Week, killing many of the monks and burning the monastery; Theosterictus and the survivors were seized and brought before the authorities. Refusing to abandon the icons, he had his nose, ears, and fingers cut off and was held in prison for many years, sustained, the account says, by sympathetic guards.

When the persecution relaxed he returned to the ruins of his monastery and lived for a time in seclusion. Disciples gathered again around the maimed elder and asked him to lead them, and under him the community was rebuilt and grew once more to a large brotherhood. It was in this period, amid the ruins and after his sufferings, that he is traditionally credited with composing the Small Supplicatory Canon (the Small Paraklesis) to the Theotokos, one of the most widely used services of the Orthodox Church. He reposed about the year 826 and is commemorated on March 17.