Early in 808, Theodoros offered in a series of letters to explain his position to the emperor, and furthermore to perform the customary proskynesis at his feet, which offer Nikephoros declined, instead setting off for the summer military campaign. In the winter of the same year, Theodore's brother Joseph visited him in Constantinople, but refused to attend the Christmas mass in Hagia Sophia, at which the emperor, the patriarch, and the priest Joseph would have been present. As a result, he was stripped of his archbishopric. At around the same time a small military division was dispatched to the Stoudios Monastery to arrest Theodore, Joseph, and Platon. A synod was then held in January of 809, at which Theodore and his followers were anathematized as schismatic. Theodore, Joseph, and Platon were thereafter banished to the Princes' Islands: Theodore to Chalke, Joseph to Prote, and Platon to Oxeia.