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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 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 populace under 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), suggests how past neglect within modern Orthodox academic theology of the "Fathers of the Philokalic movement," including St. Nicodemus, contributed to gaps in assessment of the Saint's work.
Recent renewed attention in the West to the primary Orthodox context of the saintSaint's work writings 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.
St. Nicodemus reposed in the Lord in 1809 and was [[glorification|glorified]] by the Orthodox Church in 1955. He is a local saint of the [[Metropolis of Paronaxia]] and the [[Mount Athos|Holy Mountain]]. His [[feast day]] is celebrated on [[July 14]].
==Sources==
*In addition to twentieth-century English editions of "The Philokalia," "Unseen Warfare," and "The Rudder," new twenty-first century English translations of St. Nicodemus' works writings (some of them collaborations with St. Makarius of Corinth), often with new prefaces by Orthodox scholars, include the Institute for Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies' "Christian Morality" or "Chrestoethia of Christians," the Uncut Mountain Press editions of "Exomologetarion--A Manual of Confession," "Concerning Frequent Communion," and "Confession of Faith," and the English translation of "The Synaxarion" adapted by Hieromonk Makarios of Simonos Petra.
*The account of St. Nicodemus in the above-mentioned translation of "The Synaxarion," compiled by Hieromonk Makarios of Simonos Petra and an adaptation of St. Nicodemus' work, "July 14," pp. 146-153, includes helpful footnotes by the editor. Trans. Mother Maria Rule and Mother Joanna Burton. Holy Convent of the Annunciation of Our Lady Ormylia (Chalkidike), 2008. Vol. 6.
* ''Modern Orthodox Saints (Vol. 3)'' by Constantine Cavarnos. Published by the Institute for Byzantine & Modern Greek Studies, 1994 (ISBN 0914744410)
