Studite Fathers

Studite Fathers (студити; studyty). An Eastern Christian monastic order founded in Constantinople in 463. Its adherents followed an entirely contemplative life, living by the Gospels and singing daily all the offices. The eminent theologian Saint Theodore Studite (759–826) compiled the Typikon or basic monastic book of rules. The Studite Typikon was later adopted by monasteries on Mount Athos and in the Slavic East. Saint Theodosius of the Caves introduced the Studite Typikon at the Kyivan Cave Monastery in 1070, and from there its use spread to most monasteries in Kyivan Rus’. In addition to prayer, the monks practiced charity, painted icons, copied books, and wrote chronicles.

In the early 20th century Metropolitan Andrei Sheptytsky wrote a new Typikon and renewed the Studite order in Western Ukraine, and also became archimandrite of the order. In 1901 he transferred the first group of novices from Olesko to the village of Vulka, near Lviv, and in 1904 to Sknyliv. Their monastery there, which housed 30 monks, a fine library, and a school for precentors, was destroyed during the First World War. In 1919 the Studites were re-established at Sheptytsky’s summer residence in Univ. The order grew: monasteries were founded in Zarvanytsia (1921), Lviv, Luzhky, and elsewhere, and missions in Podlachia, Polisia, and even the Ukrainian settlement at Kamenica, Bosnia (1908–24). From 1917 Klymentii Sheptytsky assisted his brother in administering the order; he eventually succeeded him as archimandrite. They worked on the Studite Typikon together, and completed a major revision in 1936.

Studite monks farmed; ran workshops, orphanages, and boarding schools; engaged in icon painting and bookbinding (in Univ); and administered the Studion library in Lviv. In 1935 they began to publish the monthly Iasna put' for Studites and Prominchyk sontsia liubovy for a popular readership. By 1939 there were 8 Studite monasteries, 3 missions, and 225 monks.

After the Soviet occupation of Western Ukraine the Studite order was suppressed. Some monks who had managed to flee founded monasteries in Buche and Krefeld-Traar (West Germany) and in Woodstock, Ontario, Canada (1951); for a time (1974–84) there was also a Studite monastery in Paraguay. In 1965 Cardinal Yosyf Slipy founded a Studite monastery, the Studion, in Castel Gandolfo, near Rome. In emigration, Studite Fathers work as icon painters, scholars, and printers. A contemporary Studite iconographer, Yu. Mokrytsky, painted the iconostasis of the Saint Sophia Cathedral in Rome. In 1978 the hieromonk Liubomyr Huzar was consecrated by Cardinal Slipy as archimandrite for Studites outside Ukraine. In the early 1990s the Studite monastic order was revived in Ukraine. In 1998 the order began publishing monthly Lavra in Lviv.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Sheptytsky, A. Typikon studitskoj Lavry sviatoho Antoniia pecherskoho v Sknilovi pod Lvovom (Zhovkva 1910)
Ammann, A.; Iieromonakh Marko. Chentsi Studyts'koho ustava (Edmonton 1955)
Wolinski, E.; McCully, W. Studyty idut' vpered: Studite Monks Move Onward (Toronto 1985)
Myts'ko, Ihor. SviatoUspens'ka lavra v Unevi: (kiinets' XIII–kinets' XX st. (Lviv 1998)

Ivan Khoma

[This article was updated in 2001.]