The Life
Thekla was eighteen years old, betrothed to a wealthy young man, when the Apostle Paul came to her city of Iconium. Sitting at her own window, she heard him preaching about the Lord Jesus Christ, and her heart was given to Christ at that very moment. She broke off her engagement, followed Paul, and gave the rest of her ninety years to the Lord. The Church calls her the first woman martyr because she walked into a great fire for him, untouched by the flames. She is one of the first persons we know of, after the apostles themselves, to give the Gospel her whole life.
When Saint Paul came to Iconium, he stayed in the house of a faithful man named Onesiphoros and there preached about the Lord. Thekla’s house was nearby. She sat at her window for three days listening to the words of Paul drift across the courtyard, and she did not eat or drink or sleep the whole time. Her mother came to call her and she did not move. Her betrothed begged her and she did not even hear him. The Word of Christ had taken hold of her, and from that hour she belonged to the Lord.
Thekla’s mother and fiancé went to the prefect of the city and accused Saint Paul of luring young women away from marriage. Paul was thrown into prison. That night Thekla slipped out of her house, took the gold ornaments she had been given as a bride, and bribed the guards with them. She went into the cell and sat at Paul’s feet for three days, listening to his teaching about the Lord. She did not care what it cost. She wanted Christ.
The Apostle Paul was beaten and exiled from the city. Thekla was brought home, and again her mother urged her to marry. She refused. Theokleia, in a rage, demanded that her own daughter be put to death. The judge sentenced Thekla to be burned alive. The pyre was built in the marketplace. Thekla walked toward it without fear, made the Sign of the Cross over herself, and stepped in. At that moment the Lord Jesus Christ appeared to her in the flames. The fire blazed up but did not touch her. A great storm came out of nowhere, with thunder and rain and hail, and the fire was put out. The crowd ran in terror. Thekla walked out of the marketplace alive.
Thekla searched for Paul, found him hidden in a cave, and went with him to Antioch. There a powerful man named Alexander tried to take her by force in the street. She tore the wreath from his head and resisted him publicly. He, humiliated, accused her before the eparch as a Christian. She was sentenced to be thrown to wild beasts. Twice the beasts were loosed against her. Twice they came up and lay down at her feet without touching her. Even bulls bound to tear her apart could not harm her. The eparch, seeing all this, set her free.
After her release in Antioch, Thekla went back to Paul, then returned to Iconium and tried to bring her own mother to Christ. Theokleia would not listen. Heartbroken, Thekla left her and went to a desolate region near Seleucia. There she lived in a small cave on a mountain, praying, healing the sick who came to her, and teaching them about the Lord Jesus Christ. So many pagans came to faith because of her preaching that the Church gave her a title that had been reserved until then for the apostles themselves: Equal-to-the-Apostles. She is the first woman to bear it.
Thekla lived in her mountain cave for many decades. She healed the sick by the grace of Christ alone, and would not take payment. The pagan physicians of Seleucia became jealous and angry. When Thekla was ninety years old, they sent a group of young men up the mountain to defile her, hoping that the loss of her purity would also be the loss of her power. Thekla saw them coming. She ran toward the great rock at the back of her cave and called on Christ. The rock split open in front of her, received her into itself, and closed behind her. She gave her holy soul to the Lord in that very moment. A piece of her veil was left visible at the rock as a sign for the centuries.
The Church reads these words of the prophet Isaiah at the office for women martyrs because they describe Saint Thekla’s life better than any other passage of Scripture. The Lord himself was her Husband. He took her from the betrothal her family had arranged and made her his own bride. Every other engagement passed away. He alone remained.
After Saint Thekla’s repose, her cave at Meriamlik near Seleucia became a place of pilgrimage for the whole Christian world. Constantine the Great built a great church for her in Constantinople. The Emperor Zeno restored her shrine in the fifth century. The pilgrim Egeria traveled there from Spain in the 380s and wrote about what she saw. Saint Gregory the Theologian retired there for three years before becoming archbishop. The Convent of Saint Thekla in Maaloula in Syria, where the people still speak Aramaic, has guarded her memory for many centuries. Her witness has never been forgotten.
Thekla was eighteen years old, with a wedding planned, when she first heard the Gospel. She did not have to leave home to find Christ. He came to her at her window. Her whole life from that day was the answer of a young heart to the love of God. The fire would not burn her. The lions would not touch her. The bulls fell away. The rock itself opened for her. Whatever the world threw at Thekla, the Lord caught it before it could harm her. He does the same for every soul who gives him as much of themselves as Thekla gave him.