Defender of the cult of sacred images and reformer of monastic life

Today, St Theodore the Studite (Constantinople, 759-826), brings us to the middle of the medieval Byzantine period, in a somewhat turbulent period. His uncle Plato (Abbot of the Monastery of Saccudium in Bithynia) guided him towards monastic life, which he embraced at the age of 22. He was ordained a priest by Patriarch Tarasius. Theodore distinguished himself within Church history as one of the great reformers of monastic life (he urged the return to the teachings of St Basil) and as a defender of the veneration of sacred images, in the second phase of the iconoclasm. In assuming human nature, the invisible eternal Word appeared in visible human flesh and in so doing sanctified the entire visible cosmos. Icons unite us with the Person of Christ, with his saints and, through them, with the heavenly Father. —For Theodore the Studite an important virtue on a par with obedience and humility is the love of work, in which he sees a criterion by which to judge the quality of personal devotion.