Venerable Nicodemus the Hagiorite

Nicodemus the Hagiorite or Nicodemus of the Holy Mountain (Greek: Ὅσιος Νικόδημος ὁ Ἁγιορείτης; 1749 – July 14, 1809) was a Greek ascetic monk, mystic, theologian, and philosopher, venerated as a saint in the Eastern Orthodox Church. His life's work was a revival of traditional Christian practices and patristic literature. He wrote ascetic prayer literature and influenced the rediscovery of hesychasm, a method of contemplative prayer from the Byzantine period. He is most famous for his work with Macarius of Corinth on the anthology of monastic spiritual writings known as The Philokalia, as well as for his compilation of canons known as the Pedalion (or The Rudder) which he co-wrote with a hieromonk named Agapios Monachos. With Macarios of Corinth, Nicodemus was responsible for the compilation and publishing of The Evergetinos, thoroughly reviewing a vast collection of materials from a number of other collections of sayings of monastics and others, ranging from the well-known works of St. John Cassian and Palladius, to the anonymously produced Apophthegmata collections, but including materials also from hagiographies, menologia, and other, unspecified and now-lost sources. Assembling, collecting, and editing a number of manuscripts scattered among the libraries of Mount Athos, the Holy Mountain. Nicodemus was canonized by the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople in 1955. Persecution from the Turks, who ruled most of the Greek world at the time, cut his schooling short, and he returned to Naxos in 1770. Nicholas made the acquaintance of Macarius of Corinth a few years after returning home, beginning a lifelong friendship. It was shortly thereafter that he decided to embrace the monastic life, following the example of three monks he had encountered, Gregory, Niphon, and Arsenios. These men had come from Mount Athos, which had been an important center of monasticism for over seven hundred years, and persuaded Nicholas to go there as well.