still followed by the monks of Mount Athos. Monks from Athos participated at the Seventh Ecumenical Council of Nicaea of 787. In 885, a decree of Emperor Basil I proclaimed Mount Athos a place of monks, and no laymen or farmers or cattle-breeders are allowed to be settled there. The Monastery of St. Catherine on Mount Sinai, built in 548, goes back to the early days of monasticism, and is still occupied by monks. Fine penmanship and the copying of manuscripts were held in honor among the Basilians. Among the monasteries which excelled in the art of copying were the Stoudios, Mount Athos, the monastery of the Isle of Patmos and that of Rossano in Sicily; the tradition was continued later by the monastery of Grottaferrata near Rome. These monasteries, and others as well, were studios of religious art where the monks toiled to produce miniatures in the manuscripts, paintings, and goldsmith work. Notable monks Leontius of Byzantium (d. 543), author of an influential series of theological writings on sixth-century Christological controversies. Fortescue, Adrian. Sophronius of Jerusalem, Patriarch of Jerusalem in 634, a monk and theologian who was the chief protagonist for orthodox teaching in the doctrinal controversy on the essential nature of Jesus and his volitional acts. Maximus the Confessor, Abbot of Chrysopolis (d. 662), the most brilliant representative of Byzantine monasticism in the seventh century. St. John Damascene, who wrote works expounding the Christian faith, and composed hymns which are still used both liturgically in Eastern Christian practice throughout the world as well as in western Lutheranism at Easter. The Byzantine monasteries furnish a long line of historians who were also monks: Georgius Syncellus, who wrote a "Selected Chronographia"; his friend and disciple Theophanes (d. 817), Abbot of the "Great Field" near Cyzicus, the author of another "Chronographia"; the Patriarch Nikephoros, who wrote (815–829) an historical "Breviarium" (a Byzantine history), and an "Abridged Chronographia"; George the Monk, whose Chronicle stops at A. D. 842. There were, besides, a large number of monks, hagiographers, hymnologists, and poets who had a large share in the development of the Greek Liturgy. Among the authors of hymns may be mentioned: Romanus the Melodist; Andrew of Crete; Cosmas of Jerusalem, and Joseph the Hymnographer. From the beginning the Oriental Churches often took their patriarchs and bishops from the monasteries. Later, when the secular clergy was recruited largely from among married men, this custom