Theodora of Sihla, Teodora or Bohdanna of the Carpathians (; born 1650 â d. ?) is a Christian ascetic and Romanian Orthodox saint, commemorated on 7 August.
Born in VânÃÂtori-NeamÃÂ, NeamàCounty during the reign of Vasile Lupu, she was the daughter of the chief armourer of NeamàCitadel, the boyar ÃÂtefan Joldea. In her youth, she was married off against her will. Being childless, both she and her husband decide to embrace monasticism, he withdrawing to under the name Elfterie, and she to .
Foreign invasions prompt her to retreat into the BuzÃÂu Mountains (she is said to have also passed through the woodland hermitage FundÃÂtura), where she lived for nearly a decade (her name is mentioned in an inscription on the altar stone of the woodland hermitage at New Agaton). From here she went firstly to NeamÃÂ Monastery, where she was guided towards , in the . With the guidance of SihÃÂstria's abbot, and with the blessing of the hermitage's egumen, she ascended the mountains to become an anchorite in the Sihla wilderness. The word "sihlÃÂ" means thick forest of young trees; thicket. Over a century later, Calistrat HogaÃÂ described the hermit's environment:
Theodora initially lived in a cottage in a rocky part of Sihla, left to her by an elderly monk. Oral tradition recounts that nuns fleeing from foreign invasions came across the saint's cottage, who relinquished it to move into a cave, even more remote than her initial abode.
After her death, the body of the St. Theodora remained in the cave in which she had spent the greater part of her hermitage. The knowledge of her life and death is said to have reached her husband, who left Poiana MÃÂrului and came to spend the last decade of his life at SihÃÂstria, close to his wife's resting place. Around 1725, was founded in her memory.
She remained buried there until circa 1828-1834 when, during the Russian occupation of the Romanian Principalities, she was translated to Pechersk Lavra in Kiev.
The Romanian writer Calistrat HogaÃÂ wrote about her in his book "Pe drumuri de munte"("On mountain paths"):
The Synod of the Romanian Orthodox Church proclaimed the canonization of St. Theodora of Sihla on 20 June 1992, establishing her commemoration on 7 August.