This bright star of the Church shone in this world in 1749 on the Greek island of Naxos. The pious and devout parents of the future saint baptized him with the name Nicholas, and sent their child to a local priest so that the pastor could teach him to read. Unlike other children, Nicholas shunned games and instead gave himself over to reading. The Lord bestowed on him not only a bright mind, but also an extraordinary memory which allowed him to quickly retain everything he had read and unerringly repeat it at any time.
At the age of sixteen, Nicholas was sent to Smyrna to learn from the didaskalos, or teacher, Joseph Dendrinos. Both his professor and his classmates grew fond of the young man for his kindness and noble nature. Apart from secular knowledge and theological discipline, he mastered the Greek language in all its forms. This would consequently allow him to fulfil the mission the Lord destined for him—to make the treasures of Church Tradition accessible for the oppressed Orthodox Greeks.
Nicholas was forced to come back to his home island of Naxos four years later, when the Turks were killing off the Smyrna population following the war with Russia. There he met Athonite monks Gregorios, Niphon and Arsenios, who left the Holy Mountain on account of the Kollyvades controversy. They kindled love for monasticism in the young man, and instructed him in the ABCs of ascetics and inner prayer. They told him about a person of outstanding virtues, proficient in the works of church fathers, who lived on the island of Hydra: Metropolitan Macarios of Corinth (commemorated on April 17). Nicholas hastened to this man as the hart panteth after the brooks of water (cf. Psalms 41/42, 1) and found in him a like-minded person. They both wanted to do for the Church what it needed most—to translate and publish the works of the holy fathers, the foundation of the Church Tradition. There Nicholas made the acquaintance of the famous hermit Sylvester of Caesaria who lived in a remote cell nearby. The monk praised the joy of hermetic life so zealously that Nicholas chose to take on himself the sweet and pleasant yoke of Christ. Sylvester wrote a reference letter for the young man, and he set out for Mount Athos (1775).
He first entered Dionysiou Monastery where he was soon tonsured a monk with the name Nicodemus. The young man was appointed as secretary and church reader. He quickly set a good example for the brethren, for he carried out his obediences humbly and without complaint, and was assiduous in prayer and abstinence. Forgetting those things which were behind, he every day reached forth unto those things which were before (cf. Phil. 3, 13) and struggled to submit his body to his spirit. He was thus preparing himself for the spiritual warfare of solitary life.
Metropolitan Macarios of Corinth visited the Holy Mountain two years later. He entrusted Nicodemus with the task of editing the Philokalia, an Orthodox encyclopedia of prayer and spiritual life, and preparing it for publication. The young monk withdrew to Karyes1 to carry out this duty worthy of the most experienced masters of hesychasm, and which required profound knowledge in spiritual science. Moreover, Nicodemus worked on the compositions Evergetinos2 and, Concerning Frequent Communion. Though St. Macarios authored the latter, St. Nicodemus enriched it significantly. The saint returned to Dionysiou Monastery after he finished his work.
From that time on, Nicodemus met often with the hesychast fathers and immersed himself in the Jesus prayer; he soon felt the desire to fully immerse himself in divine stillness. He learned about St. Paisius Velichkovsky (commemorated November 15) who was the spiritual instructor to about a thousand monks, enlightening them about how one should put his mind in the heart. St. Nicodemus began his journey to meet St. Paisius, but by the will of God a storm stopped him and he was forced to return to Mount Athos. The saint, inflamed with desire to commit himself to prayer and solitude, never returned to Dionysiou Monastery and began to live in a secluded cell not far from Karyes. Later he moved to the Kapsala Skate of Pantokratoros Monastery, to a kaliva consecrated in honor of St. Athanasios. He copied manuscripts to earn his living. Day and night he would immerse himself in uninterrupted prayer, and study the works of Church Fathers, rapidly ascending the ladder of divine ascent.
Elder Arsenios of the Peloponnese returned to the Holy Mountain after a short while and began to live in the skete; St. Nicodemus had made his acquaintance back on Naxos. Nicodemus chose to voluntarily leave his solitary life to acquire gifts one can obtain with the help of obedience, so he became the elder’s disciple. They built a new cell, but the many visitors were constantly intruding on their privacy. So they imposed exile on themselves and left for an uninhabited island of Skyropoula lying opposite Evia (1782). But it proved to be too difficult to survive there, so Arsenios soon left the island and Nicodemus stayed there alone.
There he wrote his Handbook of Spiritual Counsel, at the suggestion of his cousin, Hierotheos, Bishop of Euripos. This spiritual book deals with guarding one’s senses and thoughts as well as intellectual prayer. It is considered to be the best work written by St. Nicodemus. He was some thirty-two years old when he authored it; he did not use any additional books or notes save the treasure of his own outstanding memory and constant communion with God as his source. St. Nicodemus set forth the teaching of the Church Fathers on spiritual life and illustrated it with an impressive number of quotes and accurate references. He explains how one can free his mind from the slavery of bodily pleasures and allow it to reach the spiritual joy of contemplation with the help of inner prayer.
While living on the deserted island, St. Nicodemus had to resist the savage attacks of demons that sought to make him flee. Nicodemus had been so timid when he was a child that he even feared to sleep with a closed door. But there, when the evil spirits whispered at his window, he rose his head to laugh at their vain attempts to daunt him.
Having spent a year on Skyropoula, the saint returned to the Holy Mountain, where he was tonsured into the great schema and settled in the cell of St. Theonos in Kapsala. Nicodemus agreed to have a disciple, Hierotheos, and began to work on his books and instruct the brothers who settled around him with even greater zeal, introducing them to spiritual wisdom.
Soon St. Macarios of Corinth visited Mount Athos again and commisioned Nicodemus to prepare a translation of the collected writings of St. Symeon the New Theologian.3 St. Nicodemus emphasized in the foreword for that book, filled with profound instructions on divine contemplation, that the book was for both monastics and laymen, for all are called to perfection. Later, he prepared Exomologetarion, or A Manual of Confession,4 and a compilation of canons to the Most Holy Theotokos in each tone and for each day of the week, so that they could be read in monasteries at the end of Vigil service or Compline.
Apart from other liturgical texts,5 St. Nicodemus published adapted versions of The Spiritual Combat by Lorenzo Scupoli (1589)6 and Spiritual Exercises7 which enjoy enormous success to this day. Those compositions were not a mere translation; St. Nicodemus thoroughly reworked and provided them with remarkable instructions on repentance, ascesis, and the Jesus Prayer.
However, the Athonite monks met his work Concerning Frequent Communion with outright hostility. They defended their tradition to commune three or four times a year—a custom that contradicted the holy canons and Apostolic Tradition. Patriarch Procopius of Constantinople condemned the book as a newly invented heresy. But Patriarch Neophytus VII lifted the ban after he was enthroned (1789), and the Kolyvades were recognized as true guardians of Holy Tradition. However, the foolish, absurd calumniation about St. Nicodemus continued to spread in certain monastic circles. Some slandered the saint, saying that he hid the Holy Gifts in his skufia to have a chance to commune at any time. But the saint kept silence, hoping to receive justification only from God and tearfully prayed for those who were led astray by their misconception about commemorating the reposed on Sundays.
Hieromonk Agapius of Peloponnese came to Mount Athos and suggested that St. Nicodemus revise and translate his compilation of Church canons and rules, providing it with more profound commentaries. The life of the Church was more important for St. Nicodemus than his own life, and he zealously got down to that job. He even got four copyists to help him timely finish his work on the compilation that he titled the Pedalion. For over two years, St. Nicodemus worked day and night, collecting, comparing, correcting wrong and controversial texts, drawing parallels with the rules of Ecumenical Councils, Church Fathers and Byzantine civil law, enriching the composition with an enormous number of notes that offered guidance as to how one should use those canons in the life of the Church.8 The finished book was sent to Constantinople, and it took a lot of time before the patriarch gave his blessing. After that the Athonite monks decided to buy it and sent the necessary sum of money. Only then was the book transferred to Hieromonk Theodoret in Romania for publication. But he turned out to be averse to the Kolyvades and the practice of frequent Communion, so he unilaterally made changes in the text, distorting its meaning and Church Tradition. The book was published in Leipzig in 1800. When St. Nicodemus saw it, he felt deeply insulted and exclaimed, “I would rather he thrusted a sword into my heart than add something to this book or abridge it!”
Furthermore, word reached St. Nicodemus that a manuscript of the collected writings of St. Gregory Palamas had been seized and destroyed in the printing house in Vienna. St. Athanasios Parios (commemorated on June 24) and Metropolitan Leo of Heliopolis had asked St. Nicodemus to compile and comment on the works of St. Gregory, and the saint had to invest much time and energy into that job. The Austrians ruined the text as they were looking for Rigas Feraios’ manifesto calling the Greeks to rebel against the Ottoman Empire. That piece of news deeply distressed St. Nicodemus, he shed tears regretting not the irreparable loss of time spent on this work but the loss of such a treasure.
Later, monk Nicodemus, together with Sylvester of Caesarea, spent some time in the cell of St. Basil, where St. Theophilus the Myrrh-Streamer (commemorated July 8) used to live. He subsequently went on with his solitary life and apostolic labors. Dressed in rags and wearing rough shoes, he considered himself the least of all people. He never cooked anything for himself and ate only boiled rice or honey diluted with water, a few olives and some soaked beans. If his hunger was extreme, he would go to his neighbors to eat with them, and there he would immediately engage in conversations and completely forget about the food. People saw that he was devoted to only two things: prayer and theological studies. They always found him either bent over a book or writing something, or with his head bowed on his chest placing his mind into the depths of his heart in order to call upon the holy name of Jesus. He became all prayer, and his intimate union with God made the Divine Grace put all the treasures of Church into his heart. When St. Nicodemus was writing, he would completely immerse himself into his work. Once a monk came to his cell, and when he found the saint at his work, he put a piece of fresh bread in his mouth. That monk came again in the evening and saw that the saint was in the same position, with the piece of bread in his mouth, as if he had not noticed anything.
At that time, St. Nicodemus was writing an extensive commentary on St. Paul’s epistles based on the interpretation of St. Theophylact of Ochrid. St. Nicodemus enriched the composition with a commentary on the general epistles. In addition he wrote down commentaries on the nine biblical odes (the saint entitled the book, The Graceful Garden), and translated the Commentary on the Psalter by Euthymios Zigabenos. As in all his other books, St. Nicodemus by no means restricted the work to mere translation. He took as the foundation and guide one of the commentaries accepted by the Church and then supplimented it with extensive notes and testimonies of different Church fathers on a variety of issues.
Like an inexhaustible source, he published both the selected lives of ancient saints (Neon Eclogion, or New Miscellany) and New Martyrology, in which he included lives of new martyrs to strengthen the faith of Christians oppressed by the Ottoman yoke. Thanks to this collection, many apostates converted to the Orthodox faith and joined the glorious host of martyrs. St. Nicodemus was constantly striving to instruct of the people of God, so he published an essay that he called, Chrestoethia of Christians (“Good Morality of Christians”). It was a beautiful exposition of moral instructions given by St. John Chrysostom.
Many of those who were wounded by sin or apostasy flocked to the Kapsala ascetic, bypassing bishops and confessors, seeking to find spiritual healing and consolation. Both monks and laymen came to St. Nicodemus from afar. The saint soon began to complain that he could no longer immerse himself in the prayer he desired, and wanted to withdraw to a deserted, unknown place. However, an illness thwarted him in his desire to realize those plans.
At the age of fifty-seven, exhausted by asceticism and literary works that would have been enough to fill an entire library, St. Nicodemus suffered from such a great weakness that even adequate nutrition could not help him restore his normal condition. So he left the Kapsala skete and decided to live for a while in the cell of his friends in Karyes,9 and later with one of their neighbors, an iconographer. There he created the Synaxarion,10 which took him two years to produce. The saint returned to his cell in the skete after that and made an extensive commentary on the festal canons (Heortodromion) and, The New Ladder, an interpretation of the Seventy-five Hymns of Degrees included in the Oktoekhos and sung on Sunday Matins. The latter manifested all his theological knowledge and spiritual strength. The holy ascetic completed that work while completely enfeebled; he lost all his teeth and went almost totally deaf (1808).
At that time, a new slander against St. Athanasios of Parios and three other Kolyvades led to their unjust condemnation by Patriarch Gregory V. St. Nicodemus was too weak to stand up for them; he was only able to write, The Confession of Faith.
His condition deteriorated. Having reworked The New Ladder for the last time, the saint exclaimed: “Lord, take me! I'm tired of this world!” Gradually, half of his body became paralyzed. The saint repeated the Jesus prayer aloud and asked the brethren to forgive him for his not being able to say it to himself. After confessing and receiving Communion, he took the relics of Sts. Macarios and Parthenios, tearfully kissed them, and said, “Holy fathers, why did you leave me an orphan? You have gone to heaven and are now abiding there for the good works you did on earth; you are already contemplating the glory of our Lord. And I am suffering for my sins. I beg you, my fathers, pray to our Lord that He have mercy on me and vouchsafe me to be where you are!" At night he exclaimed: “I’m dying, I’m dying, I’m dying. I beg you to give me Communion!” The saint communed, and an unearthly peace descended on him. He crossed his arms over his chest and said to the monks, who worried about him: “I have accepted Christ into myself. How can I not be calm?” At sunrise on July 14, 1809, St. Nicodemus reposed in the Lord. One of his attendants exclaimed, “It would be better if thousands of other Christians died today rather than St. Nicodemus!”
The star of Venerable Nicodemus waned, but its light continues to shine for the Church, and his books remain infinite source of wisdom, consolation and inspiration for the fullness of life in Christ.
From The Synaxarion: The Lives of the Saints of the Orthodox Church
