The Monk Gregory was born in the late sixties of the 13th century in the village of Kukule (Asia Minor). As a young man, he was captured by the Ottoman Turks who attacked his home village. He was redeemed from captivity by the Laodicean Christians, who were greatly impressed by the performance of church hymns by the captives released by the Turks to the church closest to the military camp.
Subsequently, the life of the monk is associated with places of monastic settlements: the island of Cyprus, Mount Sinai, Palestine, the Cretan hermitage, Athos, the Parorian hermitage (near the border between Bulgaria and Byzantium), again Athos, Paroria. Of these places, Mount Sinai and Athos should be especially noted. At Sinai the monk was tonsured into the minor schema. Here he led a truly ascetic life, for which he received the name Sinaite. Selfless obedience, humility, fasting, almost incessant prayer (sometimes on the top of Mount Sinai, where Moses the Seer of God was remembered), diligent reading of the Holy Scriptures, daily confession to the abbot of all sinful thoughts, monastic work, and in between - copying sacred books with the art of calligrapher...
In the “Philokalia” we read that, having come to Athos, the monk found there “many fathers, who were adorned with knowledge and purity of morals, but were diligent only about active life, but they knew so little about keeping the mind, precise silence and contemplation that they did not even understand these names.” And so Saint Gregory, seeing all this, flared up “with zeal and began to teach sobriety, guarding the mind and mental prayer not only to the silent ones who lived in solitude, but also to all the Cenobites.”
The Monk Gregory died in the middle of the 14th century (presumably in 1346).
Just as during his life Saint Gregory taught inner work, so after his death, with his creations, he “beautifully and fully depicts the active method of heartfelt prayer.” Five of the saint’s creations have survived to this day. These creations are as follows:
Very useful chapters arranged in acro-verse (137 chapters).
Other chapters: On passionate change. About a good change. About temptations in dreams (7 chapters).
A detailed discussion about silence and prayer, moreover about the signs of grace and delusion, and about the difference between fervor and energy and how easy it is to fall into delusion without a guide (10 chapters).
About silence and two types of prayer. How should prayer be performed? About breathing. How should the psalms be sung? Oh the delights. About reading (15 chapters).
About how a silent person should sit during prayer and not finish it hastily. How should the prayer be read? How should one keep the mind (from distraction). How to eliminate thoughts. How to sing psalms. To someone who asks about curbing the belly. About charm and many objects (7 chapters).
In the middle of our century, all of them were re-translated from Greek into Russian by Archimandrite Veniamin Milov (later Bishop of Saratov and Balashov; †08/02/1955). The text of this translation in typescript is stored in the library of the Moscow Theological Academy and is used in this work.
11
St. Niphon II of Constantinople, Patriarch († 1490, commemorated August 11)
Saint Niphon was born around 1435-1440 in the Peloponnese (Greece), into a very pious family. Upon completion of his education, he became a monk in Epidavrion. After the death of his elder Anthony, he retired to Holy Mount Athos, where he labored in the monasteries of Koutlumousiou, Great Lavra and Dionysiou.
For his holy life, learning and eloquence, the Athonite monks forced him to instruct them, although the humble Niphon refused, saying that “he is not worthy to treat the healthy, but he himself needs to be cured of them.” After the death of Metropolitan of Thessalonica in 1483, the clergy and flock of the diocese chose Niphon as their shepherd and he, convinced by the monastic brethren and the abbot, agreed to accept the bishopric. Soon, at the end of 1486, at the insistence of the Vlachian princess, he was elevated to the patriarchal throne of Constantinople. For two years he steered the ship of the Church, but in 1488 he was deposed and retired to live in asceticism in the monastery he founded. In the struggle for influence on the election of the patriarch, characteristic of the entire era of the Turkish yoke, the saint was again nominated to the See of Constantinople, but he stayed there for only a year, from the summer of 1497 to the summer of 1498, and was again forced to retire.
Around 1500, the Vlachian governor Radu the Great called the saint to serve as high priest in his domains. For five years Saint Niphon served as Metropolitan of Wallachia, zealously serving the Church, instructing both the prince and all people without regard for ranks and titles. Under him, two new dioceses were founded with sees in the cities of Ramnicu Valcea and Buzau.
In the spring of 1502, the saint was again, for the third time, called to the See of Constantinople, but refused, preferring to remain with the Romanian flock.
In 1505, a dispute arose between the saint and the governor. The voivode criminally allowed one of his boyars, who abandoned his wife and children, to remarry his sister. Saint Niphon, intolerant of lawlessness, left his see, predicting many misfortunes for the rebellious commander. The saint convinced his faithful disciple, the boyar Neagoe Basarab, that if he adheres to Christ’s commandments, his name will become famous throughout the Romanian land.
The saint blessed his flock with tears and, together with his disciples Macarius and Joasaph, returned to the Holy Mountain, to the Vatopedi monastery. Knowing that Macarius was eager to confess Christ through martyrdom and that this was the will of God, he blessed him and he accepted death from the Turks for his confession in Thessalonica. The saint knew the hour of his martyrdom, saying to his disciple Joasaph: “Know, my son, today your brother Macarius died a martyr’s death and joyfully ascends to heaven.”
Soon he and his disciple secretly went to the Dionysios Monastery. Here Elder Petronius once saw the saint praying at night, enveloped in divine light. Saint Niphon humbly hid his rank and performed his obediences as an ordinary monk until Saint John the Baptist appeared to the abbot in a dream and revealed the saint to him, commanding him and all the brethren to meet him with honor as patriarch.
One day the saint, boarding a ship that came to the monastery, calmed the raging sea. At other times, when the brethren asked his prayers for the sailors, the saint instructed them to fulfill the rule without laziness and to refrain from idle talk.
Finally, feeling the approach of his death, the saint gathered the brethren and fulfilled their last request, composing a prayer of permission, read at the funeral service. Having blessed his disciple Joasaph to go to Constantinople and there accept the crown of martyrdom for confessing Christ, the saint rested on August 11, 1508.
According to the prediction of the saint, the pious Nyagoe Basarab became the governor of Vlahia in 1512. Remembering his mentor, in 1515 the governor transferred the relics of Saint Niphon to his possessions, to the Dyalu monastery, where he donated a large silver ark for them.
On August 16, 1517, in the newly consecrated monastery of Curtea de Arges, Patriarch Theoliptus of Constantinople, together with the Synod of the Romanian Lands and the abbots of the Athos monasteries, performed the solemn glorification of the sanctuary of Niphon. This became the first official canonization of a saint in Romania. In the same year, the relics of the saint were returned to the Dionysiu Monastery, which was completely restored at the expense of the Romanian governors Vasile Lupu, Neagoe Basaraba and Petru Rares. This is where they remain to this day. However, in gratitude, the Athonite monks handed over the venerable head and right hand of Saint Nyagoe to Basarab, who placed them in his Argesh monastery. Here they were preserved until 1949, when they were transferred to the Metropolitan Cathedral in Craiova.
15
Venerable Joseph the Hesychast