Section 01: Foundations

The world Theodore came from and the man it made. Born in 759 into a senior Constantinopolitan civil-service family, Theodore followed his uncle St. Plato into the monastic life when, after the death of Leo IV in 780, the whole household renounced the world and founded the monastery of Sakkoudion in Bithynia. This section sets out the family, the Sakkoudion community, and the formation — ascetic, Basilian, and combative — of the reformer the Church would come to know.

Contents

File Topic
Family and Sakkoudion The noble family — father Photeinos, an imperial financial official; mother Theoktiste; the uncle St. Plato, abbot of Symbola; the household’s renunciation in 781 and the founding of Sakkoudion in Bithynia; Theodore’s tonsure, his ordination by Patriarch Tarasios (c. 787), and his accession as abbot in 794
The Formation of a Reformer The sources of Theodore’s monastic vision — St. Basil’s Asketikon, the Pachomian and Palestinian inheritance, St. John Climacus; his classical and rhetorical education; and the character — rigorous, uncompromising, devoted to the akribeia of the canons — that the controversies would reveal

How to Use

  • Start with Family and Sakkoudion for the biography of the early decades: the household, the renunciation, and the monastery in Bithynia where Theodore was formed and first governed.
  • Read The Formation of a Reformer for the spiritual and intellectual sources of the reform — what Theodore drew on, and the temperament he brought to it.

Cross-References