Athanasios 8 was one of the monks (συνασκηταί) of the monastery of Stoudios in the time of Theodoros 15 (Theodore the Stoudite); mentioned in a list of monks there by the author of the Life of Nikolaos the Stoudite (Nikolaos 26; see Timotheos 3): Vita Nic. Stud. 877B.

Athanasios 8 is included also in a list of Stoudite monks who were inspired by the example of Theodoros 15: Vita B Theod. Stud. 244C-245A (the others were Ioseph 3, Antonios 35, Timotheos 3 and Naukratios 1). Probably identical with the leading Stoudite monk, Athanasios, who in association with Naukratios 1 was a leader of the Stoudites who annoyed St Ioannikios (Ioannikios 2) by opposing his attempts to obtain permission for Isaakios 7 to become a monk (and cf. also Anonyma 56): Petrus, Vita Ioannicii 57 (οἱ Στουδίται, οἱ περὶ Ἀθανάσιον καὶ Ναυκράτιον παρεγένοντο). Athanasios 8 and Naukratios 1 were leaders of the Stoudites whom Ioannikios 2 continued to oppose; Ioannikios 2 advised the patriarch Methodios 1 (when they met in 846) to have nothing to do with either them or their associates Ioannes 240, Ignatios 6 and Anonymus 565: Petrus, Vita Ioannicii 69-70. They were apparently responsible for divisions in the church during the patriarchate of Methodios 1.

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