The churches of Constantinople neither begin nor end with St. Sophia, however. The oldest of them is St. John the Baptist of the Studion, so called from the Roman senator Studius who about 463 founded a monastery near the Golden Gate. The monks by whom this monastery was first peopled belonged to the order known as the Sleepless Ones, because by a system of relays they kept up an unending series of offices. Nevertheless, they found time to gain renown as copyists and illuminators of manuscripts, and some of the hymns they wrote are still sung. The monks took the unpopular side against the iconoclastic emperors, but after the triumph of the iconodules, in the ninth century, the Studion became the most important monastery in the city. Its abbot took precedence of all other abbots. The emperors visited it annually in state. Two of them even exchanged their crowns for its habit. In 1054 several meetings took place there between Constantine X and the legates who had come from Rome to settle the differences between the Pope and the Patriarch. Cardinal Humbert finally settled those differences by laying on the altar of St. Sophia a bull of excommunication against the Patriarch Cerularius and all his followers. That was the first definite schism between the churches. When Michael Palæologus drove the Latin emperors from Constantinople in 1261, he made the first part of his triumphal entry on foot from the Golden Gate to the Studion. In front of him went in a chariot the famous icon of the ὀδηγητρία, the Shower of the Way, which he left in the church. This sacred painting, ascribed to the prolific brush of St. Luke, was acquired with other relics in Jerusalem by Eudoxia, empress of Theodosius II. She gave it to her sister-in-law Pulcheria, who built a special church for it on Seraglio Point. The relic gradually took the place of the Palladium which Constantine brought from Rome. It was prayed to in battles, shown from the walls in sieges, carried in triumphs, and annually borne in procession to the Great Palace for the ceremonies of Easter. The Studion possessed other precious relics of its own, such as the head of John the Baptist and the Sacred Lance. Several persons of importance were buried in the precincts of the monastery. Among them was a Turkish prince, son of Baïezid the Thunderbolt, who died there of the plague in 1417. Brought up as a hostage at the court of Manuel Palæologus, he became a Christian, but for fear of incurring his father’s displeasure the monks would not baptise him till his last illness. It was under Baïezid II that the monastery passed into Turkish hands. By way of compensation the Sultan sent to the Pope of the day, who happened to be Alexander Borgia, the Sacred Lance and other relics. An order of dervishes followed the monks of the Studion, and the church of St. John is now called Emir Ahor or Imrahor Jamisi, the mosque of the Chief of the Stables. [Illustration: Interior of the Studion]