Monastery of Stoudios

May 19, 2010 01:00 by haci


Byzantine miniature depicting the Stoudios Monastery and the Propontis (Sea of Marmara).Hagios Ioannes Prodromos en tois Stoudiou (Saint John the Forerunner at Stoudios), often shortened to Stoudios or Stoudion (Latin: Studium), was historically the most important monastery of Constantinople (modern-day Istanbul), the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire. The residents of the monastery were referred to as Stoudites (or Studites). Although the monastery has been derelict for half a millennium, the laws and customs of the Stoudion were taken as models by the monks of Mount Athos and of many other monasteries of the Orthodox world; even today they have influence.

The ruins of the monastery are situated not far from the Propontis (Marmara Sea) in the section of the city called Psamathia, today's Koça Mustafa Paşa. It was founded in 462 by the consul Stoudios (Latin: Studius), a Roman patrician who had settled in Constantinople, and was consecrated to Saint John the Baptist. Its first monks came from the monastery of Acoemetae.