Theodore the Studite

Theodore the Studite (759–826) was a Byzantine monk, reformer, and theologian who served as abbot of the Stoudios Monastery in Constantinople, transforming it into the most influential monastic center in the Byzantine world. He suffered three exiles for his principled stands against imperial interference in church affairs: first over the "Moechian Controversy" (Constantine VI's adulterous remarriage to Theodote, Theodore's own cousin), then under Emperor Nikephoros I over the rehabilitation of the priest who had performed that marriage, and a third time during the second phase of iconoclasm under Leo V, during which he led the theological defense of icon veneration through letters, homilies, and his three Refutations of the Iconoclasts. His rule of monastic life, drawn from the Rule of Basil and shaped by his own legislation, became normative for Byzantine and later Eastern Orthodox monasticism. He was also a prolific poet and letter-writer whose correspondence, numbering over five hundred letters, constitutes a major source for the ecclesiastical and political history of the early ninth century.