The Life of St Nicodemos the Hagorite

Nicodemos was born in 1749 on the island of Naxos, one of the beautiful islands of the “Kyklades” in the Aegean Sea. His baptismal name was Nicholas, and his last name was Kallivourtsis. His parents, Anthony and Anastasia, were pious people. His mother later became a nun at the Monastery of St. John Chrysostom, taking the monastic name Agathe.

From his early years young Nicholas was distinguished by his exceptional alertness, his industry, his labors and love for religious and secular learning. He was gifted with great acuteness of mind, accurate perception, intellectual brightness, and with a vast and strong photographic memory, which helped him later in the writing of a most impressive number of books. In a letter one of his fellow-students calls young Nicholas “an excellent miracle of his times. He knew from memory whatever he read, not only the philosophical, economic, medical, astronomic and even military treatises which he has read, but also the poets, and the historians ancient and new, Greek and Latin, as well as all the writings of the Fathers. It was enough for him to read a book once and remember it throughout his life.”

His first teacher in Naxos was the wise and prudent Archimandrite Chrysanthos, the brother of the New Martyr and apostle of the Greek Nation, St. Kosmas Aitolos. Undoubtedly, Chrysanthos had a lasting influence on Nicholas. The love of this great Aitolian family the Greek people and their care in preserving the flame of faith can be seen in the great missionary work of St. Nicodemos, who remained close to the heart, traditions, and language of the average Greek Orthodox of his times.

Since Naxos could not offer enough education for the impatient, brilliant young man, Nicodemos went to Smyrna to the renowned Evangelical School where he studied under the spiritual guidance of the famous master of his time, Ierotheos Voulismas. Nicodemos stayed in Smyrna for five years. There he mastered, besides the Greek language, Italian and French. He so distinguished himself in all the academic fields that he quickly became the teacher of his fellow students. Father Theokletos Dionysiatis notes that all these academic achievements did not spoil the brilliant young man. On the contrary, he served young and old with admirable humility, attracting the love and gratitude of his fellow students as well as that of his teacher Ierotheos. Ierotheos later invited him to take over the directorship of his school. “Come, my son, even now in my old age, that I might leave you as a teacher at the school, as I do not have anyone else like you in attainment.”

In 1770 the Russians burned the Turkish fleet at Tsesme, one of the most important ports on the west coast of Asia Minor. The Turks punished the Greek Orthodox people with extreme reprisals. The massacres and extensive persecution provoked young Nicholas to leave Smyrna for his native island of Naxos. He stayed there for five years and served as secretary and assistant to the Metropolitan of Paros and Naxos, Anthimos Vardis, who apparently developed high esteem for the purity of character and vastness of learning of this promising scholar.

During this period Nicholas met the highly admired and respected priest-monks Gregory and Niphon, as well as the Gerontas Arsenios, all of whom were well versed in the Athonite way of life and practitioners of the spiritual “art” of hesychasm. Apparently, their moral excellence and their true piety influenced Nicholas immensely. They introduced him to the life of the ascetics of Mount Athos and persuaded him to follow the life of the Spirit, the life of unceasing prayer, the life of hesychasm, poverty, humility and absolute devotion to Christ.

During the Russian-Turkish war of 1768, Macarios of Corinth was forced out of, and finally lost, his episcopal throne in the great city of Corinth. With the permission of the Ecumenical Patriarchate he became a traveling bishop. Apparently Nicholas heard about him and met him on the small Greek island of Hydra. A long, devoted, and genuine friendship developed between the two, producing a collaboration that bore splendid fruits for Orthodox theology and spirituality. In Hydra, Nicholas also met Silvestros of Caesarea, a great monk and spiritual father, who cultivated in the heart of the young Nicholas the divine eros or love for the life of contemplation.

Thus, in 1775, at the age of twenty-six, Nicholas, with letters of recommendation from Silvestros, left for Mount Athos. There he renounced the world, was tonsured a monk, and received the Mikron Schema or “small habit,” the second step into the monastic life of the Church. According to monastic custom, he changed his secular name from Nicholas to Nicodemos. The holy fathers of the Monastery of Dionysiou then appointed him reader of their cenobitic community. He spent his two years there studying in the library of the monastery.

In 1777 Macarios of Corinth visited Mount Athos. The two men met in Karyes, the capital of the Holy Mountain, where they began to work together on the publication of the magnificent Philokalia. St. Macarios was at that time forty-seven years old and Nicodemos twenty-eight.

St. Nicodemos did not stay in only one monastery during his life at the Holy Mountain. First, he wanted to use all the resources the Holy Mountain provided at that time. He visited libraries, studied manuscripts, and worked on his publications constantly. Second, he aspired to a better spiritual life, an unceasing ascension toward perfection. He was seeking hesychia and wanted to be free of all human needs. Third, he was seeking a spiritual father in order to exercise the great virtue of hypakoe, that is, obedience. He hoped that through obedience he would be granted greater spiritual achievements in prayer, humility, and divine contemplation. Father Theokletos Dionysiatis calls him an eagle flying all over the spiritual mountains in order to live the experiences of divine love and be closer to his Creator.

For some time St. Nicodemos remained at Karyes as a guest at the kelli (cell) of St. George, which belonged to the Monastery of Lavra and was commonly known as the Monastery of “Skourtaioi.” The monks provided for him, giving him love, attention, and care, so that he could continue researching and writing his books. Then he tried to travel to Romania to meet the great Russian coenobiarch Paissy, but it apparently was not God’s will for him. His boat met a violent storm on the high seas, and after reaching the island of Thassos, St. Nicodemos was forced to return to Mount Athos. After staying a short time at the Skourtaioi Monastery, he left for a skete, a small monastic place where monks lived alone with their spiritual father. At the skete of the Monastery of Pantokratoros, known today as Kapsala, he practiced hesychia (stillness) under the spiritual guidance of the famous gerontas Arsenios the Peloponnesian, whom he had met in his native Naxos.

Yet he still sought something higher. He traveled with Arsenios to the small, barren island of Skyropoula across from Euboia. There they practiced the strict ascetic life for one year. He wrote that he lived “the life of a worker and laborer; digging, sowing, harvesting, and every day doing all the other things by which the toilsome life on a barren island is characterized.”

In 1783 he returned to Mount Athos, received the “Great Schema,” and settled close to the Monastery of Pantokratoros at the Kalyva of Theonas, taking as his disciple a co-patriot from Naxos named John, who had changed his name to Ierotheos. This monk served Nicodemos for six years.

St. Nicodemos’ life is impressive in its simplicity, the hard and poor way of his living, the complete renunciation of all the pleasures of he flesh. As his spiritual brother Euthymios writes, his food consisted of rice boiled in water, honey diluted with water, olives soaked in fava beans, and bread. He rarely ate fish. He practiced xerophagy (the ascetic node of eating bread, raisins, and nuts) in the true sense of the word. The neighboring monks used to bring him food or invite him to their pare table where, beginning to talk, he would forget completely the food prepared for him. Those who knew him said that he lived the life of an angel. He was humble, sweet, meek, and without possessions. He spoke of himself as “a monster,” “a dead dog,” “a nonentity,” unwise,” “uneducated.”

His fame spread, and many Orthodox and non-Orthodox visited him to receive advice and spiritual guidance. Patriarchs, metropolitans, and lay officials such as John Kapodistrias, who later became the first prime minister of Greece, visited him and supported his publications. They were amazed to see a man dressed in rags - he had only one cassock - with plain sandals; old, without teeth, exhausted from the fasting and the hardships of his strict monastic life. His eyes were full of flame and his mouth did not cease speaking the word of God. As his spiritual brother Euthymios was to say, he was ready to explain the Scriptures to everyone, and then he would bend his head to the left side and say secretly the famous Jesus Prayer, “Lord Jesus, save me.” Many times he would say, “Fathers, let us go to a barren island so that we may get rid of this world.”

The end of his life, however, was approaching. In 1809 he stayed for a time at the “kelli” of the icon-painter Kyprianos, where he continued to work on the “Anabathmoi,” or the “Degrees” of the Octoechos. Feeling constantly weak, he returned once more to his beloved monks of the Monastery of Skourtaioi.

On July 5, 1809, he suffered a stroke and was not able to speak easily thereafter. Medical doctors visited him, but they could not provide substantial help. He made a general confession and received the sacrament of holy unction.

On July 13 he felt that the end was near. He had recited the Jesus Prayer all his life in his heart. Now he began to say it aloud. He asked for the sacred relics of his spiritual fathers, St. Macarios and St. Parthemos. With tears in his eyes, he asked the saints to take him to “the glory of the Lord,” which they now enjoyed. The brothers remained awake all night. “Teacher, how do you feel?” they asked him. “I die, I die, I die,” he said, and asked for holy communion. He crossed his hands and stretched out his legs.

Early in the morning of July 14, 1809, “the spiritual sun,” as one of his biographers calls him, quietly left this world. As one of his admirers said, “Fathers, it was better for a thousand Christians to die than Nicodemos.” He had labored in the mystical vineyards of the Lord so hard; his body could not suffer any more.

Nicodemos’ death left great sorrow among the Orthodox people in all the world. His fame, a fame of holiness, sacrifice, and creative spiritual fruits, left immense and indelible marks on the Eastern Church. The pious Orthodox people in their consciousness, and almost immediately after his death, elevated him to the state of a saint. He became known everywhere as the “Hagiorite,” as representative of all the spiritual beauty and mystical virtues of the Holy Mountain.

On May 31, 1955, the Holy Synod of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, with Patriarch Athenagoras presiding, approved and signed a synodical act regarding St. Nicodemos the Hagiorite. The synodical act stated that through the guidance of the Holy Spirit, and following the proper synodical examinations and deliberations, the Holy Synod decreed that St. Nicodemos the Hagiorite be enumerated among the saints of the Church and be honored with special services, hymns, and “encomia” on the fourteenth of July of each year, the anniversary of his passing from this world to everlasting life.

This synodical act was the response to an official report and request submitted by the abbot of the whole monastic community of Mount Athos. The Greek people, most especially, accepted this decision with great enthusiasm.

A special service in his memory was written by Father Gerasimos Mikragiannanites, the greatest Greek Orthodox hymnologist of our times, and churches were built in his honor on the Holy Mountain as well as in other provinces of Greece.

Adorned with the gift of wisdom, O Father, thou has appeared as a clarion of the Spirit and a teacher of virtue, O Nicodemos, who speakest of God; for to all thou has offered teaching of salvation and purity of life, revealing effulgence by means of thy writings, through whose riches thou has shone as light in the world.