Raised as a child acrobat in the circus, Theodora married the future emperor Justinian I in 523. Upon the death of his uncle Justin I in 527, the couple ascended the throne together. An empress of immensely strong character, Theodora was known for her sympathetic support for the dissenting Miaphysite Christians, persecuted under Justin I and Justinian in their campaigns on behalf of a Chalcedonian imperial orthodoxy. To the exiled church leaders and monks, Theodora provided financial help and protection. She also housed the exiled patriarchs in the imperial palace of Hormisdas in Constantinople during the extensive but ultimately fruitless theological debates sponsored by Justinian. She supported the missionary activities of Yaʿqub Burdʿoyo and Theodore of Edessa, during which the foundations of a separated Oriental Orthodox church were laid, and particularly the nascent Syr. Orth. Church. She remains a revered figure among the Syr. Orth. to this day.

The most important evidence for Theodora’s life and activities comes from two writers who knew her personally: the notoriously scathing portrait of the Greek historian Procopius in his ‘Anecdota’ and the sympathetic depiction offered by the Syr. bp. and historian Yuḥanon of Ephesus in both his ‘Lives of the Eastern Saints’ and his Ecclesiastical History. Subsequent W.-Syr. tradition transformed her story into a hagiographical romance, claiming she was the chaste daughter of a Miaphysite priest from Mabbug (or Kallinikos), whom Justinian met while on military campaign in the east and married against the will of her father. She is the subject of a play in Arabic by Pawlos Behnam (translated into Syriac by Yuḥanon Dolabani).