Martyr Theodore was born in 1871 in the village of Prudki, Ryazan province. After graduating from the Moscow Theological Seminary in 1894, he began teaching in a parish school. In 1901, he was elected a member of the Commission for the Organization of Public Readings in Moscow. He served as a psalmist in the Church of the Our Lady of Sorrows, and later in the churches of the Moscow diocese.
In 1935, he moved to Moscow, but in 1936 he was summoned to the passport office and exiled to Mozhaisk. Arrested on January 17, 1938, he was imprisoned in Taganka prison. During interrogations, he expressed his hostile attitude towards the Soviet government, condemning the persecution of religion and the clergy. On February 14, 1938, the NKVD troika sentenced him to execution. Theodore Lukich Palshkov was shot on February 17, 1938, and buried in an unknown common grave at the Butovo firing range near Moscow.
