The Byzantine Tradition

Between the desert fathers and the Holy Mountain stands the long Byzantine middle — the millennium in which monasticism became woven into the fabric of the Christian empire. This section treats the decisive Byzantine reform of St. Theodore the Studite, whose Stoudite typikon shaped coenobitic monasticism across Byzantium and the Slavic world, and the wider place of monasticism in Byzantine society: the urban and imperial monasteries, the founders’ typika, and the tension between withdrawal and public influence.

Tradition: Pan-Orthodox (Byzantine)

Overview

Orthodox monasticism did not pass directly from fourth-century Egypt to fourteenth-century Athos; it was carried and transformed through the long Byzantine centuries. Theodore the Studite and the Stoudion treats the pivotal reform of the great Constantinopolitan monastery of Stoudios: St. Theodore’s restoration of strict Basilian coenobitism, his catechetical formation of the brotherhood, and the Stoudite typikon that became the model for Byzantine and, through the Kiev Caves, Slavic monasticism. The Monasteries of Byzantium treats the wider institutional world: the urban monasteries of the capital, the imperial and aristocratic foundations, the typika by which founders governed their houses, and monasticism’s entanglement with the society, economy, and politics of the empire.

Files

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theodore-the-studite-and-the-stoudion.md St. Theodore the Studite and the great coenobitic reform; the Stoudite typikon that shaped Byzantine and Slavic monasticism
the-monasteries-of-byzantium.md The urban and imperial monasteries; the founders’ typika; the place of monasticism in Byzantine society

See Also