Unlikely Empress and Champion of the Weak
Theodora is a departure from women introduced in past articles. Not only was she born more than a millennium earlier, but her beginnings were humbler. She did not grow up with nurturing Christian parents or educational opportunities. Her childhood was traumatic. She came from a poor family in Constantinople (today Istanbul, Turkey). Her father had been a bear-tamer in the circus, but he died when Theodora was little. Her mother and stepfather could not provide for Theodora and her sisters, so sources record that the girls worked as “actresses” from an early age. More than likely, this means that they endured exploitation and abuse for many years. In her late teens, Theodora managed to escape her situation and was taken in by a government official in Libya, but he, too, abandoned her. Sometime during her sojourn in North Africa, however, Theodora’s life took a turn. She experienced a Christian conversion, returned to Constantinople, and began to work as a wool-spinner near the palace, where her wit and beauty attracted the Emperor himself. Improbably, the scandalous young woman married Justinian in 523, and she was crowned Empress of the Byzantine Empire in 527.
Read the full article at: https://rcus.org/article/women-in-church-history-theodora-c-500-547/
