Gregory_of_Sinai
Gregory of Sinai
Greek Christian saint
Gregory of Sinai, or in Serbian and Bulgarian Grigorije Sinaita (c. 1260s – 27 November 1346), was a Greek Christian monk and writer from Smyrna. He was instrumental in the emergence of hesychasm on Mount Athos in the early 14th century.[1]
Born in Smyrna, he was captured by Seljuk Turks as a young man, and eventually ransomed to Cyprus, whence he became a monk at Saint Catherine's Monastery in the Sinai Peninsula. Later, he moved to Crete, where he learned the practices of hesychasm from a monk named Arsenios. In 1310, he went to Mount Athos, where he remained until 1335. At Mount Athos, he was a monk at the Skete of Magoula near Philotheou Monastery.[2] Increasing Muslim raids on Athos pushed Gregory and some disciples into the Bulgarian Empire, where he would find protection under Bulgarian Emperor Ivan Alexander. He went on to found a monastery near Paroria, located in the Strandzha Mountains of southeast Bulgaria.[3]
Gregory's disciples also included Nicodemus of Tismana,[4] Patriarch Kallistos I of Constantinople (who wrote a life of Gregory c.1351[5]),[6] Romylos of Vidin, Theodosius of Tarnovo, Gregory of Sinai the Younger, and Gerasimos of Euripos.
He died on 27 November 1346 in the mountains of Paroria, near present-day Zabernovo, Bulgaria.[1]
The Philokalia includes five works in Greek by Gregory:[7]
- On Commandments and Doctrines, Warnings and Promises; on Thoughts, Passions, and Virtues, and also on Stillness and Prayer: 137 Texts
- Further Texts
- On the Signs of Grace and Delusion, Written for the Confessor Longinos: Ten Texts
- On Stillness: Fifteen Texts
- On Prayer: Seven Texts
- Palmer, G. E. H.; Ware, Kallistos; Sherrard, Philip (1999). The Philokalia: The Complete Text. Vol. 4. Faber and Faber. ISBN 0-571-19382-X.
- Bozhilov, Ivan; Gyuzelev, Vasil (1999). История на средновековна България VII–XIV век [History of Medieval Bulgaria VII–XIV centuries] (in Bulgarian). София (Sofia): Анубис (Anubis). ISBN 954-426-204-0.
- Speake, Graham (2018). A history of the Athonite Commonwealth: the spiritual and cultural diaspora of Mount Athos. New York. ISBN 978-1-108-34922-2. OCLC 1041501028.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) - Beyer 2006, p. 2–3.
- Skoubourdis, Anna (2020). The Philokalia of the Holy Neptic Fathers, Volume 5: compiled by St. Nikodemos of the Holy Mountain and St. Makarios of Corinth. Virgin Mary of Australia and Oceania. ISBN 979-8-7096-9499-6. OCLC 1291631709.
- Palmer, G. E. H.; Ware, Kallistos; Sherrard, Philip (1999). The Philokalia: The Complete Text. Vol. 4. Faber and Faber. ISBN 0-571-19382-X.
- Beyer, Hans-Veit, ed. (2006), Каллист I, патриарх Константинополя. Житие и деятельность иже во святых отца нашего Григория Синаита (PDF), Ekaterinburg: Ural Federal University Press, ISBN 5-7525-1484-3 (= Kallistos I, Patriarch of Constantinople: Life and Works of Our Late Father Gregory of Sinai; critical edition of the Greek text and Russian translation)
