A Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology

3. Of ALANIA. There is extant in MS. at Vienna, and perhaps elsewhere, a Sermon on the Burial of Christ, In Jesu Sepulturam, by Theodore, bishop of Alania, which Cave conjectures to be a city not far from Constantinople. But as the Vienna MS. contains also a discourse or letter addressed by Theodore to the Patriarch of Constantinople, in which are recorded his apostolic labours among the Alani, and his subsequent consecration as bishop of Alania, it is evident that the name Alania designates the country of the Alani, between the Euxine and Caspian seas, north of the Caucasian range. Kollar has given a brief extract from this discourse. The time in which Theodore lived is not clear; but the mention of his apostolic labours among the Alani indicates that he first converted them to the belief of Christianity, which may have been in the time of Justinian, when the neighbouring tribe of the Abasgi were converted. He must, as the Apostle of the Alani, have been a different person from the Theodorus who was bishop of Alania in the thirteenth century. (Kollar, Supplement. ad Lambecii Commentar. de Biblioth. Caesaraea, lib. i. col. 254, &c.; Le Quien, Oriens Christianus, vol i. col. 1348; Allatius, De Symeon. Scriptis, p. 82; Fabric. Bibl. Graec. vol. x. p. 372 ; Cave, Hist. Litt. vol. ii. Dissert. Prima, p. 19.)