Studion

From the Catholic Encyclopedia

(Latin Studium), the most important monastery at Constantinople, situated not far from the Propontis in the section of the city called Psamathia. It was founded in 462 or 463 by the consul Studios (Studius), a Roman who had settled in Constantinople, and was dedicated to St. John the Baptist. Its monks came from the monastery of Acoemetae. At a later date the laws and customs of Studion were taken as models by the monks of Mount Athos and of many other monasteries of the Byzantine Empire; even today they have influence. The Studites gave the first proof of their devotion to the Faith and the Church during the schism of Acacius (484- 519); they also remained loyal during the storms of Iconoclastic dispute in the eighth and ninth centuries. They were driven from the monastery of Studion and the city by Emperor Constantine Copronymus; after his death (775), however, some of them returned. Abbot Sabbas zealously defended the Catholic doctrines against the Iconoclasts at the Seventh Ecumenical Council in Nicaea (787). His successor was St. Theodore of Studion to whom the monastery owes the most of its fame, and who especially fostered study. During St. Theodore's administration also the monks were harassed and driven away several times, some of them being put to death. Theodore's pupil Naucratius re-established discipline after the Iconoclastic dispute had come to an end. Abbot Nicholas (848-5 and 855-58) refused to recognize the Patriarch Photius and was on this account imprisoned in the Studion. He was succeeded by five abbots who recognized the patriarch. The brilliant period of the Studion came to an end at this time. In the middle of the eleventh century, during the administration of Abbot Simeon, a monk named Nicetas Pectoratus (Stethatos) made a violent attack on the Latins in a book which he wrote on unleavened bread, the Sabbath, and the marriage of priests. In 1054 he was obliged to recant in the presence of the emperor and of the papal legates and to throw his book into the fire, but he began the dispute again later. As regards the intellectual life of the monastery in other directions it is especially celebrated for its famous school of calligraphy which was established by St. Theodore. In he eighth and eleventh centuries the monastery was the centre of Byzantine religious poetry; a number of the hymns are still used in the Greek Church. Besides St. Theodore and Nicetas, a number of other theological writers are known. In 1204 the monastery was destroyed by the Crusaders and was not rebuilt until 1290; the greater part of it was again destroyed when the Turks captured Constantinople (1453). The only part now in existence is the Church of St. John Baptist, probably the oldest remaining church in Constantinople, a basilica which still preserves from the early period two stories of columns on the sides and a wooden ceiling, and which is now the mosque Imrachor-Dschamissi.

KLEMENS LÖFFLER