Acoemetae

Acoemetae (also spelled Acoemeti or AkoimetoiGreek: ἀκοίμητος, lit. 'sleepless ones') was an order of Eastern (Greek or Basilian) monks who celebrated the divine service without intermission day or night. This was done by dividing the communities into choirs, which relieved each other by turn in the church. The alternating choirs came in three groups by liturgical language: Greek, Latin, and probably Syriac.

The Acoemetae order was founded in about the 425, by the monk Alexander the Acoemete. He was of noble birth, originally from the Greek archipelago, and had ties to Messalianism. Alexander was supported by the people and monks such as St. Hypatius, as well as the empress Pulcheria. He changed residence many times, once fleeing from the court of Byzantium to the desert, both from love of solitude and fear of episcopal honours. The first Acoemetae monastery was established on the Euphrates, in the beginning of the 5th century, and soon afterwards one was founded in Constantinople, with three hundred monks. The enterprise, however, proved difficult, owing to the hostility of Patriarch Nestorius and Emperor Theodosius. Driven from the monastery of St. Mennas which he had reared in the city, and thrown with his monks on the hospitality of St. Hypathius, Abbot of Rufiniana, he finally succeeded in building at the mouth of the Black Sea the monastery of Gomon, where he died, about 430.

Alexander's successor, Abbot John, founded on the eastern shore of the Bosphorus, opposite Sostenium or Istenia, the Irenaion, always referred to in ancient documents as the "great monastery" or motherhouse of the Acoemetae. In Constantinople, under the third abbot, hegumen St. Marcellus (), when the hostility of Patriarch and Emperor had somewhat subsided, Studius, a former Consul, founded the famous monastery of the Studium in c. 460. Marcellus provided the first monks for the Studium in 463. The Studium was put in the hands of the Acoemetae and became their chief house, so that they were sometimes called "Studites".

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