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Theodoulos of the Pantokrator monastery (twelfth century)

Accession number BZS.1955.1.4981
Diameter 26 mm
Condition Half missing
Previous Editions

DO Seals 5 no. 54.2. See also Wassiliou-Seibt, Siegel mit metrischen Legenden I, no. 875.


A standing figure of Christ. At right: ΧΣ̅ : [Ἰ(σοῦ)ς] Χ(ριστό)ς, and the right half of a circular inscription: κρατρ: [Ὁ Παντο]κράτωρ. Border of dots.




Θεό[δου]λον [σκέ]ποι[ς τὸν] σὸν [δ(οῦλον), Παντ(ο)]κρ[άτωρ]


Θεόδουλον σκέποις τὸν σὸν δοῦλον, Παντοκράτωρ.

Pantokrator, watch over your servant Theodoulos.


Instead of τὸν σὸν δοῦλον, the inscription on the reverse might have read με σὸν δοῦλον.

There is no indication of who Theodoulos was, but it seems reasonable to suspect, as did the editors of DO Seals 5, that he was either a monk or hegoumenos.

Emperor John II Komnenos (1118–1143) founded the monastery of the Pantokrator on a site east of the church of the Holy Apostles. The complex consisted of a male monastery, a hospital, a gerokomeion, and three churches: one dedicated to the Pantokrator, a second to St. Michael, and a third to the Theotokos Ἐλεοῦσα. According to John II's typikon of 1136, the monastery was home to some 80 monks, and was endowed with properties in Thrace, Macedonia, and the Peloponnesos. See ODB 4:1575, and Janin,Églises, 515–23; for the typikon, see Gautier, "Pantokrator," 1–145, and Byzantine Monastic Foundation Documents, 2:725–781.