Grigorie Sinaitul

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Cel între sfinți părintele nostru Grigorie Sinaitul a fost un călugăr isihast, duhovnic și teolog, la sfârșitul secolului al XIII-lea și în prima jumătate a secolului al XIV-lea. A fost unul din practicanții și teoreticienii isihasmului și a rugăciunii lui Iisus în lumea monastică din Muntele Athos. A fost duhovnicul sfântului Grigorie Palama începând perioada retragerii acestuia în schitul Glossia (către 1320). Prăznuirea lui în Biserica Ortodoxă după data adormirii sale se face la 27 noiembrie; în Biserica Ortodoxă a Greciei este prăznuit la 6 aprilie, iar în Biserica Ortodoxă Rusă la 8 august.

Viața

Gregory was born around 1265 in the village of Clazomenia near the city of Smyrna in western Asia Minor. About the year 1290, he was captured by the Hagarenes and carried off to Laodicea. After he was ransomed, Gregory traveled to Cyprus where he was tonsured a rasophore monk. Afterward Gregory journeyed to St. Catherine's Monastery at Mount Sinai where he assumed the great schema.

After a period at Sinai in which he fulfilled a number of obediences, including cook, baker, and copyist, Gregory left the monastery for Jerusalem. From Jerusalem he traveled to Crete where he learned the practice of the Jesus prayer and hesychasm from the monk Arsenios. After the turn of the century, Gregory moved on to Mount Athos, to the Magoula skete near Philotheou Monastery. Thus, having gained the experience of many centuries of the monastic life from the ancient monasteries, Gregory settled himself down in a solitary place for "hesychia" (stillness doing the Jesus Prayer), in a cell for silence and the unhindered pursuit of mental prayer combined with hard work. With his contemporary Gregory Palamas, he helped to establish Mount Athos as a center of hesychasm.

Concerned with spreading of monasticism, Gregory founded several cells on Mount Athos, as well as four monasteries in Thrace.

The last years of the life of Gregory are uncertain. On one hand his is found to have reposed in 1310 at Mount Athos. On the other hand, Gregory remained at Mount Athos until Ottoman Turks began to raid the monasteries of Mount Athos during the third decade of the fourteenth century. Then, it is said he took refuge in Bulgaria where he established a monastery in the wilderness at Paroria in the Strandzka mountains on the west coast of the Black Sea. There he reposed on November 27, 1346.

Scrieri

The Philokalia includes five of his works, in Greek.

• 137 Texts: On Commandments and Doctrines, Warnings and Promises; on Thoughts, Passions and Virtues, and also on Stillness and Prayer, where he says that "trying to comprehend the commandments through study and reading without fulfilling them is like mistaking a shadow of something for its reality" ("On Commandments and Doctrines," section 22).
• Further Texts
• Ten Texts: On the Signs of Grace and Delusion, written for the Confessor Longinos.
• Fifteen Texts: On Stillness.
• Seven Texts: On Prayer.

Gregory was also a remarkable hymnographer. The hymns ascribed to him include: The theotokion "It is Truly Meet", a canon to the Most Holy Trinity which is read at Sunday Vigil, and a canon to the Holy Cross. In the book of canons of St. Cyril of White Lake (from the year 1407) is found the "Canon of Supplication to the Lord Jesus Christ, a work also ascribed to Gregory the Sinaite."

Surse

• OCA: Venerable Gregory of Sinai, Mt. Athos
• Gregory the Sinaite
• The Second Feast of the Monastery
• Wikipedia:Gregory_of_Sinai