Theodore, known in Georgian as Tevdore, was a parish priest of the village of Kvelta, near Manglisi in eastern Georgia, who was killed by invading forces in 1609. According to the synaxarion, when an invading army demanded that he lead them to the king, he instead guided them deliberately astray into difficult mountain terrain, sparing the king and the country at the cost of his own life. He is commemorated as a hieromartyr on June 8 in the calendar followed by the Cloud of Witnesses database; the Georgian Church keeps his feast on June 21 in its own usage.
His martyrdom is set against the wars of the early seventeenth century, when the Ottoman Empire and Persia contended for control of the Near East and the Caucasus. By tradition, at the beginning of 1609 Ottoman forces had taken Baghdadi and part of Samtskhe in southern Georgia, and in June of that year they launched an attack on eastern Georgia. The aim of this campaign, joined by Crimean Tatar troops, was to seize the young king Luarsab II, who was at his summer residence, and so to bring the kingdom under their control.
The accounts agree that Theodore had remained in Kvelta to conceal the sacred vessels of his church, and that he was captured as he was locking the church doors. The invaders demanded that he serve as their guide to the king's fortress, offering reward or threatening death. Rather than betray the king, he led the army along a narrow, rocky mountain path away from the royal residence; the tradition relates that many of their horses and soldiers fell from the path and perished. When the deception was discovered, the soldiers beheaded him.
