By Archimandrite Dr. Theodoritus Polyzogopoulos
Showing posts with label St. Diadochos of Photiki. Show all posts
Showing posts with label St. Diadochos of Photiki. Show all posts
March 29, 2018
March 29, 2017
The Teachings of Diadochos of Photiki (Fr. George Florovsky)
By Fr. George Florovsky
The blessed Diadochus, bishop of Photice in ancient Epirus, stands apart in the ranks of ascetic authors. The only thing we know of him is that he was bishop in the mid-fifth century — his signature is on a letter to the Emperor Leo, a letter by the bishops of Epirus after the murder of Proterius of Alexandria by the Monophysites in 457. Contemporary historians do not mention him. St. Photius says nothing about his life but does refer to his "outstanding" address and mentions him as one of the opponents of the Monophysites at the time of the Council of Chalcedon in 451 (Bibl. cod. 231).
Diadochus' works enjoyed a wide circulation — there are numerous manuscript copies which are frequently referred to by others, and excerpts from them were taken for anthologies and florilegiae. His most important work is the Capita centum de perfectione spirituali — One Hundred Chapters on Spiritual Perfection. This is a concise and coherent manual of the monastic life. A polemical motif — the refutation of Messalianism — is very strong in this work. Diadochus helps us to understand the inner difficulties and dangers in the monastic life, in the life and "ordeal" of prayer, especially in chapters 76 to 80.
Saint Diadochos of Photiki Resource Page
January 12, 2017
Grace and Sin Within Us Before and After Baptism (St. Diadochos of Photiki)
By St. Diadochos of Photiki
76. Some have imagined that both grace and sin - that is, the spirit of truth and the spirit of error - are hidden at the same time in the intellect* of the baptized. As a result, they say, one of these two spirits urges the intellect to good, the other to evil. But from Holy Scripture and through the intellect's own insight I have come to understand things differently. Before holy baptism, grace encourages the soul towards good from the outside, while Satan lurks in its depths, trying to block all the intellect's ways of approach to the divine. But from the moment that we are reborn through baptism, the demon is outside, grace is within. Thus, whereas before baptism error ruled the soul, after baptism truth rules it. Nevertheless, even after baptism Satan still acts on the soul, often, indeed, to a greater degree than before. This is not because he is present in the soul together with grace; on the contrary, it is because he uses the body's humors to befog the intellect with the delight of mindless pleasures. God allows him to do this, so that a man, after passing through a trial of storm and fire, may come in the end to the full enjoyment of divine blessings. For it is written: 'We went through fire and water, and Thou hast brought us out into a place where the soul is refreshed' (Ps. 66.12. LXX).
March 29, 2016
Life and Works of Saint Diadochos of Photiki
Brief Life and Teachings
Saint Diadochos was born around 400, and served as the Bishop of Photiki in Epirus of Northern Greece. In 451, he took part in the Fourth Ecumenical Synod of Chalcedon as Bishop of Photiki, and supported Orthodoxy against the Monophysites. He was most likely part of a group of notables from Epirus who were captured during a Vandal raid between 467 and 474. The group was later released in North Africa, somewhere around Carthage, from whence all vanished. His exact date and place of death are thus unknown, although it is assumed he died before 486.
March 29, 2015
The Ten Conditions of the Spiritual Life According to St. Diadochos of Photiki
In his "100 Gnostic Chapters", Saint Diadochos in the prologue to the book sets out "ten conditions" (or definitions, terms), which are the main points of the book and thus could be said to be the ten conditions of the spiritual life. They are as follows:
Condition 1: Faith. Dispassionate thoughts of God.
Condition 2: Hope. Departure of the mind in love towards the things hoped for.
Condition 3: Patience. To persevere unceasingly, seeing with the eyes of the intellect the invisible as visible.
Condition 4: Freedom from avarice. To want not to have just as someone wants to have.
Saint Diadochos of Photiki as a Model for our Lives
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| St. Diadochos of Photiki (Feast Day - March 29) |
By Protopresbyter Fr. George Papavarnavas
The life of the venerable Diadochos of Photiki is, unfortunately, largely unknown. What we know is that he was born in the first decades of the fifth century and that he became a Bishop, in the period between the years 451-458 in the District of Epirus in Photiki. The Diocese of Photiki, which is located in today's Paramythia, was important for many centuries.
He was a great Theologian of the fifth century, and the fact that he is not mentioned by his contemporaries, except only slightly, "can easily be explained," according to the late Fr. Theoklitos Dionysiatis, "if one considers the remoteness of Photiki at that time, not to mention that the education of Saint Diadochos remains unknown, in accordance with his desire as expressed out of humility, in the 13th chapter of the '100 Gnostic Chapters'."
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