Venerable Theophilus the Confessor 10/23/2013
He is a Macedonian by birth, from the area of Strumica. He became a monk in his youth and founded a monastery. He suffered greatly for the icons at the time of Leo the Isaurian and he would have been killed had he not managed to explain his judge, the Consul Hypatios, the theological grounds for veneration of the icons. The Consul set him free and he returned to his monastery, where he peacefully fell asleep in the Lord in 716 and inhabited His joy.