Theodora Angelina was the only daughter of Anna Angelina and the sebastocrator Isaac Comnenus . Her maternal grandparents were Byzantine emperor Alexius III Angelus and Euphrosyne Doukaina Kamaterina.
Theodora was first married, in 1197, to Ivanko, leader of the Bulgarians. Her father had died in Bulgarian captivity not many months earlier.
A few years later she became one of the wives of a rival warlord, Dobromir Chrysos.