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In 1777, [[Saint]] [[Macarius Notaras of Corinth|Makarius of Corinth]] visited him and gave him three texts to edit and revise: the ''[[Philokalia]]'', a defining work on [[monastic]] spirituality, ''On Frequent Holy Communion'' and the ''Evergetinos,'' a collection drawing on the lives of the desert fathers. He also wrote original works such as ''Lives of the Saints''. He also later compiled the writings of St. Symeon the New Theologian and the writings of St. Gregory Palamas, although the latter collection was sadly and mistakenly destroyed amid political controversy over Greek revolts.
Although some critics have criticized his writings for alleged influence from [[Roman Catholic Church|Roman Catholic]] spirituality, canon law, and theology, his life work clearly focused on reviving traditional Orthodox texts and ascetic practices, while making use of limited materials at hand amid the Turkish occupation of the Greek world, which involved sometimes adapting Catholic materials. He translated and revised "The Spiritual Combat" (1589) by Lorenzo Scupoli, a Catholic priest of Venice, renaming it "Unseen Warfare," as well as the "Spiritual Exercises" of J.P. Pinamonti (sometimes wrongly thought to have been Ignatius Loyola's work), probably via a Greek translation by Emmanuel Rominantes. Accusations of Catholic and Pietistic influences on his work, a topic of controversy going back to divisions over the Kollyvades ascetic reform movement with which St. Nicodemus was associated in the Greek Church in his day, have been disputed--for . For a recent detailed discussion, see the introductory materials to "Christian Morality," a 2012 English translation of "Chrestoethia of Christians," which originally appeared in 1803. A current commentator in the new translation remarks on how that handbook on moral behavior by St. Nicodemus reflects Orthodox ascetic tradition and Athonite "monastic propriety of his age," responding at times to "conventions upheld by the civil authorities" for exemplary behavior by the general populaceunder a Muslim colonial regime, rather than Catholic or Pietist influence, as earlier critics alleged. Archimandrite Chrysostom Maidones, Chancellor of the Metropolis of Hierissos in Greece, in a recent English translation of St Nicodemus' guidebook for confession (a standard handbook in the Greek Orthodox Church), also commented on suggests how past neglect in within modern Orthodox academic theology of the "Fathers of the Philokalic movement," including St. Nicodemus, had contributed to gaps in assessments assessment of the Saint's work.
Recent renewed attention in the West to the primary Orthodox context of the saint's work reflects the expanded availability of English translations of his major books, as well as greater awareness of the cosmopolitan contexts of Christian sources in the early modern period--through, for example, scholarship on the sequences of translation and adaptation of Roman Catholic texts in the East, and better understanding of the influence of the Orthodox ascetic texts of the Macarian homilies on Pietism. In this light, the main context of St. Nicodemus' works can be appreciated as firmly in the tradition of Orthodox asceticism--exemplified by the sources and influence of "The Philokalia"--applicable in varying ways to monastics, clergy, and laity alike. The legacy of St. Nicodemus' voluminous scholarship can also be understood from a larger perspective as an Orthodox Christian alternative, from Mount Athos, to a variety of eighteenth-century cultural movements in Europe, including not only the Enlightenment, but also the aftermath of the Counter-Reformation, Pietism, and the beginning of Romanticism.