THECLA OF ICONIUM

According to the Book of Acts, after the persecution in Antioch of Pisidia, the Apostles Paul and Barnabas came to preach in the neighboring city of Iconium (13:51-14:7). This is modern-day Konya in central Anatolia. Here, according to Acts, “they tarried a long time, speaking boldly in the Lord, who, bearing witness to the word of his grace, did signs and wonders by their hands” (Acts 14:3).

Scripture speaks of “the multitude of those who believed” (1) and of the fury of the pagans and Jews, who rushed to “stone the Apostles (5). Among those who believed, as church tradition tells us, was a virgin named Thekla. The name is translated into Russian from Greek as “the glory of God.”

Details of the saint’s life have come down to us thanks to the document “Acts of Paul and Thecla”, written in the last quarter of the 2nd century, which was part of the apocryphal “Acts of Paul”. Although not a divinely inspired text, this literary monument conveys valuable information about the life of Orthodox Christians of that time. It consists of 43 short chapters, and, in its volume, is approximately equal to Paul’s Epistle to the Corinthians.

From the Acts of Thecla we learn that when Paul preached the word, she literally “overheard” his sermon, clinging to the “window of her house”. Struck by the proclamation of virginity and chastity for the sake of Christ and the gospel, Thecla followed Paul to prison to hear once again his promise of blessing to abstinent people. On the denunciation of her own mother and fiancé, she was flogged, and then a superstitious pagan crowd rushed to burn her at the stake. Through Paul’s prayers, the virgin managed to escape death.

In Antioch of Pisidia, where the Jews had previously attempted to kill Paul (Acts 13:50), Thecla was subjected to the harassment of a local official. The pagans once again unleashed their slander and fury on her. As a result, in the amphitheater, they threw her to be torn apart by wild animals. Here the saint found a certain auxiliary reservoir of water, in which, on the eve of her imminent martyrdom, she received Holy Baptism. “In the name of Jesus Christ, I am baptized on my last day,” - the saint’s confession has been preserved.

But the Lord this time also preserved His chosen one. “Go and teach people the word of God,” - having received such a commandment from the Apostle, Thecla preached Christ for many years in the city of Seleucia, modern Silifke, in southern Turkey. Just as the canonical book of the Acts of the Apostles ends with words about the Apostle Paul’s unceasing preaching even in chains (Acts 28:31), the “Acts of Thecla” ends with words about her preaching and has not preserved a detailed historical narrative about the circumstances of her exodus.

Christian antiquity and the Orthodox Church call her “equal to the apostles” and “first martyr”. The tomb of the saint was visited in the 4th century by the famous pilgrim Egeria and Saint Gregory of Nazianzus. The confessor of the faith in opposition to the Monophysites, Basil of Seleucia (+458), collected information about the holy virgin that was preserved in places of veneration. Together with Saint Eupraxia and Olympias, the intercession of Thecla is invoked during the Orthodox women’s monastic tonsure. Thus, in the life of the Church, the conviction of the inseparability of the ascetic vocation from the preaching of the faith is proclaimed.