The life of St Theodotus of Ancyra
Among those martyred were seven elderly virgins of the city, including his own aunt Tecusa, who were drowned in a lake after refusing to renounce their faith. Theodotus, warned in a vision, recovered their bodies by night and gave them Christian burial, an act that led to his own arrest when a companion betrayed him under torture.
He was tortured at length and finally beheaded, and a chapel was later built over his grave, which drew wide veneration in the region. The earliest account of his life and the virgins' martyrdom was written by a man named Nilus who claimed to have witnessed much of it himself; this account is our only real source, and its details cannot be independently confirmed beyond the broad outline of a local martyr and virgins remembered together at Ancyra. Theodotus is remembered by the Church, fittingly, as the patron of innkeepers.
