Theodore Studite

Holy Theodore Stoudite or holy Theodore Stoudite is one of the great figures of the Byzantine Church. Festivals on November 11th and the January 26th (translation of its relics).

The career of Theodore Stoudite (759-826)

Ordinary Beginnings of a Byzantine monk

Theodore was born in a family from senior officials, in Constantinople in 759; in a family of senior officials. His/her uncle Plato (735-814) converts himself with the monachism into Bithynie and founds the monastery of Sakkoudion where all the family until 793 resides.

An intransigent Monk

Theodore quickly becomes a convinced and intransigent monachist. In monastery of Saint-Jean-of-Stoudios (known as also Monastery of Stoudion), it organized and specified the life coenobite of the monastery until in his least details: mistrust with regard to contemplation, obedience supplements with the Higoumène, absolute personal poverty and importance of work like perfection.

Its intransigence is at the origin of the Schisme moechien: when Constantin VI repudiates his Marie wife, grand-daughter of the saint Philarète, it condemns the remarriage of the emperor like adultery. He refuses of communier with the patriarch Taraise and his Nicéphore successor, whom he considers too obliging with regard to the emperor

The Heart of resistance iconodoule

Theodore becomes the leader of the hard wing of the monachism and the heart of resistance iconodoule. Higoumene of the Monastery of Stoudion in 794, he is a declared partisan of the worship of the holy images and he suffers, so with three resumptions of the exile in minor Asia and undergoes also violences and other vexations. Its writings make it possible to come to end from the second iconoclasme, but he already died at the time of the re-establishment of the images on March 11th, 843. He dies the November 11th 826 with the monastery of Crescens, close to Nicomédie, where he had been exiled.

Monachism according to Theodore Stoudite

The Monk stoudite

According to Theodore, the monk must have three qualities: chastity, stability (not to often change a monastery), poverty. For example, clothing is exchanged each week between the monks to strictly show that they should nothing have of material, anything.

The Monastery stoudite

The entry in the monastery can be done as of the 10 years age but generally it occurs towards 16 or 17 years. One calls the newcomers of the noviciates . They take the black dress of the monk, the diagram , symbol of holiness. The monastery is enclosed and it is organized so as to be self-sufficing. With this intention, each one must work, which was not the case in the past. Moreover, the majority of the monks of these monasteries come from aristocratic mediums where work is not a usual activity. In the monastery stoudite, work is a criterion of enthusiasm, or known as differently, it is about the `' mass of the monk''.

The failure of the system

Theodore however did not succeed in founding a true monastic order, even if the majority of the Byzantine monasteries refer to its instructions; the Byzantine monachism thus remains anarchistic. The main cause is that the eremitism remains the model. Moreover, the monastery is made of a grouping releases under the authority of a cénobe. Very often, the monastery is regarded as a stage: the monk enters the monastery to become a hermit thereafter.

At the 9th century and in the first part of the 10th century, multiply on the Olympe de Bithynie of many independent monasteries. This overpopulation involves the departure of certain monks towards the Athos (Chalcidique).

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