S. John of the Studion.
Ruined Interior, seen from the Minaret of the Mosque.
S. John of the Studion, from the west.
To face page 36.
The monastery was large and richly endowed, capable of accommodating one thousand monks. [46] Its first inmates were taken from a fraternity known as the Akoimeti, 'the sleepless'; so named because in successive companies they celebrated divine service in their chapels day and night without ceasing, like the worshippers in the courts of heaven.
'Even thus of old Our ancestors, within the still domain Of vast cathedral or conventual church Their vigils kept: where tapers day and night On the dim altar burned continually. In token that the House was ever more Watching to God. Religious men were they; Nor would their reason, tutored to aspire Above this transitory world, allow That there should pass a moment of the year When in their land the Almighty's service ceased.'
But this devout practice does not seem to have been long continued at the Studion; for we never hear of it in any account of the discipline of the House. The monks of the Studion should therefore not be identified with the Akoimeti who took up such a determined and independent attitude in the theological conflicts under Zeno, Basiliscus, and Justinian the Great.[47]
In the course of its history the church underwent noteworthy repairs on two occasions. It was first taken in hand for that purpose, soon after the middle of the eleventh century,[48] by the Emperor Isaac Comnenus (1057-58), who was interested in the House because he and his brother had received part of their education in that 'illustrious and glorious school of virtue.' [49] What the repairs then made exactly involved is unfortunately not stated. But, according to Scylitzes, they were so extensive that 'to tell in detail what the emperor and empress did for the embellishment of the church would surpass the labour of Hercules.' [50] Probably they concerned chiefly the decoration of the edifice.