His remains were interred at the east end of the southern aisle, where his uncle Plato and his brother Joseph had been buried before him, and where Naucratius and Nicholas, his successors as abbots of the Studion, were laid to rest after him. [Greek: pros tô dexiô merei en tô kat' anatolas tou Prodromikou temenous pandoxô kai hierô tôn martyrôn sêkô, entha dê kai tou hosiou patros hêmôn Theodôrou hê paneukleês kai pansebastos timia thêkê kathidrytai] (_Vita S. Nicolai Studitae_, Migne, _P.G._ tome 105).
There, in fact, during the recent Russian exploration of the church, three coffins were discovered: one containing a single body, another four bodies, and another three bodies. The grave had evidently been disturbed at some time, for some of the bodies had no head, and all the coffins lay under the same bed of mortar. No marks were found by which to identify the persons whose remains were thus brought to view. But there can be no doubt that five of the bodies belonged to the five persons mentioned above. To whom the three other bodies belonged is a matter of pure conjecture. They might be the remains of three intimate friends of Theodore, viz. Athanasius, Euthemius, Timotheus, or more probably of the abbots, Sophronius (851-55), Achilles (858-63), Theodosius (863-64). Cf. _Itin. russes_, p. 100.
It would be a mistake, however, to think of Theodore only as a controversalist and defier of the civil authority. He was a deeply religious man, a pastor of souls, and he revived the religious and moral life of men, far and wide, not only in his own day, but long after his life on earth had closed. He made the Studion the centre of a great spiritual influence, which never wholly lost the impulse of his personality or the loftiness of his ideal. The forms of mediæval piety have become antiquated, and they were often empty and vain, but we must not be blind to the fact that they were frequently filled with a passion for holy living, and gave scope for the creation of characters which, notwithstanding their limitations, produced great and good men.
[Illustration: PLATE VI. (1) S. JOHN OF THE STUDION. FAÇADE OF THE NARTHEX. (2) S. JOHN OF THE STUDION. THE RUINED INTERIOR: WEST END OF THE NORTH SIDE. _To face page 40._]