St. Nicodemus the Hagiorite
Born Nicholas on the Greek island of Naxos in 1748, St. Nicodemus came to Mount Athos at age twenty-six and was tonsured at the Monastery of Dionysiou, later embracing the Great Schema and a life of stillness and tireless scholarship.
With St. Macarius of Corinth he compiled and edited the Philokalia, the great anthology of hesychast spiritual writings, and he authored or edited a vast library of works including Unseen Warfare, the Exomologitarion, the New Martyrologion, and the Rudder (Pedalion), his celebrated compilation of the Church's sacred canons. He reposed peacefully on July 14, 1809, and was glorified by the Church of Constantinople in 1955.
The greatest and most perfect thing a man may desire to attain is to come near to God and dwell in union with Him.
Spend all the hours of your life in a way pleasing to God; keep in your mind the thought that after the present hour you will not be given another, and that you will have to render a strict account for every minute of this present hour.
Know that, if you are quick to blame and despise others, God will mete out a painful punishment to you by letting you fall into the same sin for which you blame others.
Having read Holy Scripture very carefully, you should also read the holy Fathers who interpret the Scriptures. You will receive no less delight from reading the Fathers than you do from the Scriptures. The Fathers develop the hidden meanings in Scripture and with their own writings help us to understand what we did not before.
Troparion · Tone 3
You were adorned with the charism of wisdom, O Father, and appeared as a trumpet of the Spirit, and as a teacher of virtue, O Nicodemus who speaks of God; for you have offered to all the teaching of salvation and purity of life, pouring forth enlightenment through your writings, with which riches you have illumined the world.
Troparion · Tone 8
The Orthodox Church honors you as a virtuous member, its finest initiate, and a God-bearing teacher of piety; for having received heavenly grace, you shone your inspirational writings upon those who cry to you: Rejoice, O Father Nicodemus.
Saints around July 14
Get the full library
130+ saints, in your pocket
Their Lives, sayings and prayers, A to Z and by feast, with search. The Church calendar, the holy icons, and the saying of the day on your Home Screen. All in Axios! for iPhone, iPad and Android.