To the Studion, where he had studied in his youth and which he had embellished, the Emperor Isaac Comnenus retired, when pleurisy and the injuries he received while boar-hunting made him realize that he had but a short time to live. In fact, he survived his abdication for one year only, but during that period he proved a most exemplary monk, showing the greatest deference to his abbot, and besides performing other lowly duties acted as keeper of the monastery gate. How thoroughly he was reconciled to the exchange of a throne for a cell appears in the remark made to his wife, who had meantime taken the veil at the Myrelaion, 'Acknowledge that when I gave you the crown I made you a slave, and that when I took it away I set you free.' His widow commemorated his death annually at the Studion, and on the last occasion surprised the abbot by making a double offering, saying, 'I may not live another year,' a presentiment which proved true. According to her dying request, Aecatherina was buried in the cemetery of the Studion, 'as a simple nun, without any sign to indicate that she was born a Bulgarian princess and had been a Roman empress.'[70]
On the occasion of the triumphal entry of Michael Palaeologus into the city in 1261, the emperor followed the eikon of the Theotokos Hodegetria, to whom the recovery of the Empire was attributed, on foot as far as the Studion; and there, having placed the eikon in the church, he mounted horse to proceed to S. Sophia.[71]
One of the sons of Sultan Bajazet was buried at the Studion.[72] The prince had been sent by the Sultan as a hostage to the Byzantine Court, and being very young attended school in Constantinople with John, the son of the Emperor Manuel. There he acquired a taste for Greek letters, and became a convert to the Christian faith; but for fear of the Sultan's displeasure he was long refused permission to be baptized. Only when the young man lay at the point of death, in 1417, a victim to the plague raging in the city, was the rite administered, his schoolmate and friend acting as sponsor.
A tombstone from the cemetery of the monastery is built into the Turkish wall at the north-eastern corner of the church. It bears an epitaph to the following effect:—'In the month of September of the year 1387, fell asleep the servant of God, Dionysius the Russian, on the sixth day of the month.' The patrician Bonus, who defended the city against the Avars in 627, while the Emperor Heraclius was absent dealing with the Persians, was buried at the Studion.[73]
On the festival of the Decapitation of S. John the Baptist, the emperor attended service at the Studion in great state. Early in the morning the members of the senate assembled therefore at the monastery, while dignitaries of an inferior rank took their place outside the gate (Narli Kapou) in the city walls below the monastery, and at the pier at the foot of the steep path that descends from that gate to the shore of the Sea of Marmora, all awaiting the arrival of the imperial barge from the Great Palace. Both sides of the path were lined by monks of the House, holding lighted tapers, and as soon as the emperor disembarked, the officials at the pier and the crowd of monks, with the abbot at their head, swinging his silver censer of fragrant smoke, led the way up to the gate. There a halt was made for the magistri, patricians, and omphikialioi (ὀμφικιάλιοι) to do homage to the sovereign and join the procession, and then the long train wended its way through the open grounds attached to the monastery (διὰ τοῦ ἐξαέρου), and through covered passages (διὰ τῶν ἐκεῖσε διαβατικῶν),[74] until it reached the south-eastern end of the narthex (εἰσέρχονται διὰ τοῦ πρὸς ἀνατολικὴν δεξιοῦ μέρους τοῦ νάρθηκος). Before the entrance at that point, the emperor put on richly embroidered robes, lighted tapers, and then followed the clergy into the church, to take his stand at the east end of the south aisle. The most important act he performed during the service was to incense the head of John the Baptist enshrined on the right hand of the bema. At the conclusion of the Office of the day, he was served by the monks with refreshments under the shade of the trees in the monastery grounds (ἀναδενδράδιον); and, after a short rest, proceeded to his barge with the same ceremonial as attended his arrival, and returned to the palace. [75]
S. John of the Studion, from the south-east.
To face page 48.
The church was converted into a mosque in the reign of Bajazet II. (1481-1512) by the Sultan's equerry, after whom it is now named.