July 14: Commemoration of Saint Nikodemos of the Holy Mountain (Nicodemus the Hagiorite)

On July 14 our Church honours the memory of Saint Nikodemos of Mount Athos. Saint Nikodemos was born on the Greek island of Naxos in 1749 and slept on July 14, 1809.  He was a prolific writer and is still considered the most significant ecclesiastical writer of the 18^th century.

This year when we celebrate the bicentenary of the 1821 Greek Revolution it is worth revisiting the New Martyrology (i.e. catalogue of martyrs) by Saint Nikodemos. It comprises the lives and martyrdom of 87 Neomartyrs, i.e. martyrs of the faith who proclaimed Christ and refused to convert before the Ottoman kadi (i.e. judge according to Islamic law). The New Martyrology bears the date 1794 but was printed definitively in 1799 and had a great influence on enslaved Greeks.

Pictures: Archives of the Holy Metropolitanate of Paronaxia