JUSTINIAN AND THEODORA

There is a famous, almost truistic, adage to the effect that behind every great man stands a great woman. In our present case it is so demonstrably true that Justinian and Theodora can be called a poster couple for this wisdom. Furthermore, wading through the middle of the Genius section, we can say that Theodora’s genius was in no way inferior, but possibly superior to that of her husband.

Justinian I the Great (lived 482-565, reigned 527-565) was a remarkable man in his own right, but his truly world-historical achievements as one of the greatest rulers of the Roman Empire came after he met and fell in love with the stunningly beautiful, sexually and histrionically accomplished prostitute and future saint of the Christian Orthodox Church, Theodora, who was also one of the most astute political geniuses who ever lived. (Born around 500 AD, she became Empress, coequal with Justinian, in 527, and died at the early age of 48, probably of cancer.)

The separate and joint stories of Justinian and Theodora are pretty well known, and only a few details need to be reemphasized. Although the greatest accomplishment of Justinian’s reign: Codex Iustinianus bears his name, Theodora was an active participant in it, and many laws, particularly regarding women, are ascribed to her directly.

As for her political savvy and personal courage, there is this account of her most significant triumph in that department: During the worst riot against her husband in 532, Justinian was prepared to flee Constantinople to end his life in exile, but a fiery speech from Theodora stopped him, when she chided him that it would be more fitting for an Emperor to die fighting than to show his back to the assailants. Justinian took her advice and prevailed, after which Theodora’s standing in his eyes and throughout the Empire assumed superhuman proportions.

Both Justinian and Theodora were canonized as saints of the Orthodox Church. There’s nothing particularly unusual in this fact except that Theodora’s” unorthodox” religious preference for the Monophysite “heresy” was well known, as was the fact that she provided her personal protection to the leaders of the Monophysite sect and influenced her husband to such an extent in this (as of course in all other respects) that he kept this arrangement even after Theodora’s death. I might add that the ensuing miaphysite compromise allowing the sect to reconcile with mainstream Orthodoxy was reached as a direct result of this otherwise shocking and untenable accommodation. It must be noted that Christian Churches hate religious compromises, and what happened in this case was obviously the rarest of exceptions, bowing to the hallowed memory and undying authority of Justinian and Theodore.

Thus, in every respect, Justinian and Theodora must feel quite at home in our Valhalla of world-historical rulers of genius, jointly, of course!

…Regarding Theodora, here was a feminist par excellence, a brilliant nonconformist thinker, a promoter of worthy causes, a fighter for justice and women’s rights, a paragon of women’s equality to men, and a brave and noble soul. In the course of her life she grew from the indecency of her young years to moral probity of maturity (“Go, and sin no more!”), and eventually to a deserved sainthood… She could have become a role model for the future generations of women, particularly today, when it is much easier for a woman to make it in society, as long as her goals are clearly defined and wholesome.

However, our twenty-first century is the time of a continued degeneration of feminism, when the most vocal and visible women, whom the world keeps calling “feminists,” are defining it through indecency, depravity, vulgarity, social shock bordering on hooliganism and too often overstepping that border, in other words, all such qualities which Theodora either never possessed, or shunned throughout her mature life. On the other hand, modern feminism has been depleted, by its most popular champions, of all meaning and constructive value, reduced to cheap criteria of in-your-face sexuality, both heterosexual and homosexual, debauchery, and public nuisance, refusing on principle to address more important issues, thus serving as an irresponsible and cynical diversion from the real problems facing women in particular and humanity at large…

Alas, Theodora! Looking down from her eternal abode at what modern feminism has come to today, she is not a happy saint.