THEODOSIUS, Monophysite Patriarch of ALEXANDRIA. — Died in 566. He was elected after the death of Timothy III in 535, at the insistence of Empress Theodora, who desired a Monophysite patriarch of the moderate Severan persuasion (of Antioch) rather than the more radical Julianist tendency of Julian of Halicarnassus. The people, however, together with the monks who favored the Julianists, drove out T. and replaced him with Gaianus.
Emperor Justinian, at the instigation of Theodora, had T. reinstated, hoping that he would be willing to adhere to the Council of Chalcedon; then, in 537, he summoned him to Constantinople and, failing to persuade him to abandon Monophysitism, exiled him to Derkos and installed the orthodox patriarch Paul in Alexandria. Later, T. was summoned by the Empress to Constantinople, where he was able to travel twice through Asia Minor ordaining priests. In Constantinople, always under Theodora’s protection, he consecrated Monophysite bishops, above all the famous James Baradaeus, who later organized the Monophysite hierarchy especially in Syria. T. continued to direct his followers from exile until his death.
Of his writings, several letters published by J. B. Chabot and an exposition of his faith addressed to Empress Theodora are preserved (v. Mansi, XI, 273, 445).
(from H. Vincent, F.-M. Abel, Bethléem, Le sanctuaire de la Nativité, Paris 1914, p. 29)
THEODOSIUS THE CENOBIARCH — THEODOSIUS I
In the 15th cent. it was rebuilt at the beginning of our century by the Greek monks of Jerusalem.