Venerable Nicholas the Confessor Abbot of Studion

Nicholas the Confessor, also called Nicholas the Studite, was a monk and later abbot of the great monastery of Studion in Constantinople, who confessed the faith during the persecution of the holy icons. He is commemorated on February 4.

By the accounts he was born on the island of Crete, in the village of Kydonia, and at the age of ten was sent to Constantinople to his uncle, Saint Theophanes, a monk of the Studion, where he himself entered the monastic life.

During the renewed iconoclasm of the ninth century he suffered for venerating the holy icons, enduring imprisonment and exile for his confession. After the restoration of the icons he was made abbot of the Studion monastery, and he reposed about the year 868.