Gregory of Sinai

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]

Gregory of Sinai
Born	c. 1260s Smyrna (modern-day İzmir, Turkey)
Died	1346 Paroria, Bulgaria
Honored in	Eastern Orthodoxy
Feast	8 August

Biography

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]

Philokalia

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

See also

• Athanasius the Meteorite
• Constantine of Kostenets
• Cyprian, Metropolitan of Kiev
• Gregory Tsamblak
• Grigorije of Gornjak
• Grigorije Vasilije
• Isidore I of Constantinople
• Roman of Đunis

References

1. "Gregory of Sinai | Biography, Legacy, Works, & Facts". Encyclopædia Britannica. 23 November 2024.
2. Palmer, G. E. H.; Ware, Kallistos; Sherrard, Philip (1999). The Philokalia: The Complete Text. Vol. 4. Faber and Faber. ISBN 0-571-19382-X.
3. Bozhilov, Ivan; Gyuzelev, Vasil (1999). История на средновековна България VII–XIV век [History of Medieval Bulgaria VII–XIV centuries] (in Bulgarian). Sofia: Анубис (Anubis). ISBN 954-426-204-0.
4. 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)
5. Beyer 2006, p. 2–3.
6. 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.
7. Palmer, G. E. H.; Ware, Kallistos; Sherrard, Philip (1999). The Philokalia: The Complete Text. Vol. 4. Faber and Faber. ISBN 0-571-19382-X.

Bibliography

• Beyer, Hans-Veit, ed. (2006). Каллист I, патриарх Константинополя. Житие и деятельность иже во святых отца нашего Григория Синаита [Kallistos I, Patriarch of Constantinople: Life and Works of Our Holy Father Gregory of Sinai] (PDF) (in Russian). Ekaterinburg: Ural Federal University Press. ISBN 5-7525-1484-3. (a critical edition of the Greek text)

External links

• Inner Light
• "The Second Feast of the Monastery", a word from Bishop Sergios on the feast of Saint Gregory of Sinai, August 2005