On S. Nicodemos of the Holy Mountain
Adorned with the gift of wisdom, O Father, thou hast appeared as a clarion of the Spirit and a teacher of virtue, O Nicodemos who speakest of God; for to all thou hast offered teaching of salvation and purity of life, revealing effulgence by means of thy writings, through whose riches thou hast shone as light in the world. - Apolytikion of S. Nicodemos of the Holy Mountain
On Tuesday, 14/27 July, we will celebrate the feast of S. Nicodemos of the Holy Mountain, an 18th century Athonite monk whose labors in asceticism and in the writing, editing, and translating of sacred writings lifted him to the rank of a true Holy Father of modern times. In glorifying his memory, we promise to live by the pure Orthodoxy which he taught. By invoking his prayers, we ask for the grace to fulfill this promise.
S. Nicodemos was born in 1749 on the island of Naxos. At the age of twenty-six, in 1775, he left for Mt. Athos, where he was tonsured monk at the Sacred Monastery of Dionysiou. He remained an Agiorite the rest of his life, until his repose at the kelli of S. George at Karyes on 14 July 1809.
We discern two great themes in the the holy life of this holy man: 1. Great zeal and fervent love for unadulterated and pure Orthodoxy, and 2. The compassionate desire to edify his neighbor through sacred writings. The saint’s example in both areas is critical for us today, as we struggle to preserve and spread the True Faith, which is under attack from within and without as never before. In our situation, spiritual reading is not optional but essential, and the writings of S. Nicodemos are truly wellsprings of life in the midst of the barren desert of contemporary materialism. Let us consider each of these themes in turn:
S. Nicodemos loved Orthodoxy in all its purity and constantly strove to root out false teachings and false practices. The saint was part of the “ Kollyvades” movement of the 18th-19th centuries, which strove to free the Orthodox Greek people from ignorance of the Church’s true teachings and from un- Orthodox practices. The two great causes which the Kollyvades championed most vigorously were
1. restoring memorial services to their true place, on Saturday not Sunday, and 2. the return to frequent Holy Communion instead of only communing one to four times a year: 1. Sunday is the day of the eternal Kingdom, when we taste the unending joy of the Resurrection. On Sunday we should not mourn for our sins or for the dead. Saturday is the day on which we remember the descent of Christ into Hades, when He broke down the gates of hell and liberated all the souls of the righteous from the beginning of the world. Therefore, Saturday is the most blessed and right day for memorials. 2. By striving frequently to prepare for Holy Communion, we receive the grace to conquer our sins and passions, and we are united to the True Life, the Risen Christ, in His Most Holy Body and Blood! Yes, we should not approach the Holy Cup unprepared. But to excuse ourselves from preparing often and only to commune once or twice a year is also disrespectful to the Holy Mystery and, most important, separates us from Christ, Who commands us at every Divine Liturgy, “With the fear of God, faith, and love, draw near!” Frequent, prepared-for Communion, establishes holiness in daily life; it takes our lives to the level Christ really wants from us.
S. Nicodemos labored ceaselessly to enlighten his fellow Christians with holy writings. The saint’s most famous achievements are the Pedalion, an edited collection of the sacred canons of the Church, and the Philokalia, a collection of the Holy Fathers’ writings on prayer and spiritual life, which he co-edited with S. Macarios of Corinth. Either of these alone would be a monumental achivement for an entire lifetime, but they were by no means his only works. Altogether, he is responsible for twenty-six books that he either wrote or edited. In addition, he composed forty two “akolouthies,” that is, complete services, to various saints.
Obviously, the saint did not labor so much to produce these writings just for his own benefit or for a select few, but because he knew that spiritual reading is a basic necessity for every Orthodox Christian who can read. In our days of almost universal literacy, there is almost no one who can legitimately say that he is a “simple” Christian who does not learn his Faith from books. The only people that the Fathers ever excused from spiritual reading were the illiterate. May the example and prayers of our saint incite us to commit ourselves anew to the labor of studying our sacred Faith in depth. Holy Father Nicodemus, pray for us!
The Wisdom of Orthodoxy
Selections from the writings of S. Nicodemos of the Holy Mountain
On Prayer : There is no other virtue that is either higher or more necessary than sacred Prayer, because all the other virtues - I mean fasting, vigils, sleeping on the ground, ascesis, chastity, almsgiving, and all the rest - even though they are ways of imitating God, even though they cannot be taken away from us and constitute the immortal ornaments of the soul - do not unite man with God, but only render man fit to be united. Sacred Prayer, and it alone, unites. It alone joins man with God and God with man, and makes the two one spirit.
On Conscience: To have an accusing conscience is indeed the pain of pains and the sorrow of sorrows. To have an unaccusing conscience is truly the pleasure of pleasures and the joy of joys. Just as he who keeps the commandments of Christ, even before he receives the kingdom of heaven, rejoices in his conscience for the good hopes he has, so, on the contrary, the transgressor of the divine commandments experiences hell prior to hell according to Chrysostom.
On Spiritual Reading: If you read continually books with eagerness and diligence, know that this continuous eagerness and diligence will open up your mind and will make it receptive to spiritual meanings. And what you did not succeed in understanding the first time you will easily understand when you read it two or three times. For God, seeing your continuous diligence, will illumine your mind to understand even what is difficult...Divine Scripture is the Divine Science that makes us more educated than all the philosophers, more wise than all the moralists and political theorists...