Philokalic Library Volume 1

This volume contains the biographies of three figures who played key roles in the eighteenth-century religious revival of Orthodox Christian theology, spirituality, and liturgy: Nikodemos of the Holy Mountain (i.e., Mount Athos) (1749-1809); Makarios of Corinth (1731-1805); and Athanasios of Parios (1722-1813). All three were clergymen of the Greek Orthodox Church, with Makarios holding the rank of bishop, Athanasios the rank of priest, and Nikodemos the rank of monk.

The religious revival they promoted was in response to two major challenges: the erosion of Orthodox Christian spiritual and liturgical life after three centuries of repression under the Ottomans; and (2) the atheism and secular ideology of the Enlightenment and French Revolution, whose agents were active in Greece and the eastern Mediterranean. The revival began on Mount Athos in northern Greece, but soon spread throughout the Aegean Islands, Greece, and the Balkans, and eventually to the Slavic world where it inspired the nineteenth-century Russian religious renewal associated with the Optina Monastery.

A central element in the revival was the publication of the Philokalia (1782), an extensive collection of Orthodox ascetic and spiritual writings from the fourth through the fifteenth century. The Philokalia was part of a much larger publication project, and Nikodemos, Makarios, and Athanasios Parios altogether published nearly thirty major works, some of them more than one thousand pages long, covering all aspects of Orthodox theology, faith, and practice.