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After completing his seminary education, Theodore married. He and his wife Sophia raised five children: George, Nicholas, Andrew, Natalia, and Zinaiad. After his [[ordination]] as a priest, Fr. Theodore was assigned to a [[parish]] in the village of Sherstin about thirty miles from Gomel, Belaus. Fr Theodore was a zealous and popular priest who soon attracted many people from the surrounding area.
After the Bolshevik takeover of the government of Russia in 1917, Fr. Theordore found himself among the few priests in the area who did not join the [[Living Church]] movement and remained loyal to Patr. [[Tikhon of Moscow|Tikhon]] for which he was awarded a pectoral [[cross]] by the [[patriarch]] on [[April 14]], 1924. After the arrest of a [[bishop]] sent by the patriarch to the area to receive back penitent renovationist [[clergy]], Fr. Theodore came under constant surveillance by the Bolshevik authorities.
During the following decades after being forced to leave his parish in Sherstin, Fr. Theodore led a nomadic life as he could not maintain a normal household. He spent time in Cherigov where he was arrested and placed in the Kotlas camp. Later, he was in prison in Gomel where he had been sentenced to be shot. When praying before the scheduled execution day he saw a vision of reposed souls chanting and beseeching God to deliver Fr. Theodore from death. The next morning he learned that his sentence had been repealed.
