The monastery of Stoudios was founded in 453 in the southwest of Constantinople (Mango, Cyril. ‘The Date of the Studius Basilica at Istanbul’. Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies 4, no. 1, 1 January 1978: 115–22), not far from the Marmara Sea It is considered one of the first examples of the religious architecture of Eastern Roman Empire and its main church is accepted as the oldest remaining religious building in Istanbul. The monks that inhabited it were referred to as Stoudites (or Studites), and they were well known by their laws and customs that many important monasteries toke as model. The Stoudites were, in fact, repeatedly driven from the city for their strict orthodox beliefs during the various religious controversies. As regards the intellectual life of the monastery in other directions, it is especially celebrated for its famous school of calligraphy which was established by Theodore the Studite, the abbot to whom the monastery owes most of its fame. In the eighth and eleventh centuries, the monastery was the centre of Byzantine religious poetry; a number of the hymns are still used in the Orthodox Church. Three of the Stoudite monks rose to become the ecumenical patriarchs, and after the tenth century, while Stoudios served as a place of both exile and sanctuary during the imperial conflicts for notable historical figures (Giritlioğlu, Dilara Burcu. ‘An Urban Node in the Ritual Landscape of Byzantine Constantinople: The Church of St John the Baptist of the Stoudios Monastery’. Master Thesis, Middle East Technical University, 2019: 68).