Following the accession of Irene, the priest Joseph was stripped of his office, and Theodoros was received in the imperial palace. The monks then returned to the Sakkudion Monastery, but were forced back to the capital in either 797 or 798 on account of an Arab raid on Bithynia. At this time, Irene offered Theodore the leadership of the ancient Stoudios Monastery in Constantinople, which he accepted. Theodore then set about building various workshops within the monastery to guarantee autarky, constructing a library and a scriptorium, and restoring and decorating the church. He also composed a series of poems on the duties of the various members of the community, which were likely inscribed and displayed within the monastery. He furthermore composed a rule for the governance of the monastery, and made the Studios community the center of an extensive congregation of dependent monasteries, including the Sakkudion. He maintained contact with these other monasteries above all through his prodigious literary output (letters as well as catechisms), which reached a quantitative peak at this time, and developed a system of messengers that was so elaborate as to resemble a private postal service.