Christian Morality and Hymnography

The breadth of Nicodemus’s own authorship beyond the neptic Handbook: the Christian Morality (Chrēstoētheia tōn Christianōn, 1803), his treatise on the moral and devout life of the Christian in the world; and his prolific work as a hymnographer and liturgical commentator — the Eortodromion, his great commentary on the canons of the Lord’s and the Theotokos’s feasts, the New Theotokarion, his collection of canons in honor of the Mother of God, and the services and offices he composed for the saints. This file treats Nicodemus the moralist, hymnographer, and liturgist.

Tradition: Greek Orthodox / Athonite (canonized 1955)

Christian Morality (Chrēstoētheia, 1803)

If the Handbook of Spiritual Counsel addresses the inner, neptic life of the monk and pastor, the Christian Morality (Chrēstoētheia tōn Christianōn, “The Good Morals / Good Conduct of Christians”), published in 1803, addresses the moral and devout life of the ordinary Christian living in the world (Nicodemus of the Holy Mountain, OrthodoxWiki, listing the Chrestoethia of Christians, 1803). It is a work of practical Christian ethics and piety: how the faithful are to conduct themselves, to govern their passions and their dealings, to keep modesty, truthfulness, and reverence, and to order their daily life toward God. Where so much of Nicodemus’s output is for monks and clergy, the Christian Morality reflects his pastoral concern for the laity — part of the Kollyvades conviction that the recovery of authentic Orthodox life was for the whole Church, not the monasteries alone (see The Athonite Renewal). It rebukes the moral laxities and worldly conformities of his day and calls the Christian to a serious, examined, God-fearing life in the midst of ordinary occupations.

Nicodemus the Hymnographer

Among the least-known but most beautiful of Nicodemus’s labors was his work as a hymnographer and editor of the Church’s worship. The man who edited the canons of the councils (the Rudder) and the lives of the saints (the Synaxaristes) also composed and edited the hymns and services by which those saints are sung. He wrote akolouthies (offices/services) and hymns for the feasts and saints of the Church, supplying or enriching the liturgical commemoration of many whose services were lacking or impoverished (Nicodemus of the Holy Mountain, OrthodoxWiki; Constantine Cavarnos, St. Nicodemos the Hagiorite, Belmont, MA: Institute for Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies, 1974). This labor flowed directly from the Kollyvades concern for the integrity and richness of the liturgical tradition (see Tradition Against Innovation): a renewed Church needed not only its canons and its Fathers but its hymns — the sung theology of its worship — restored and enriched.

The Eortodromion

Nicodemus’s chief work of liturgical commentary is the Eortodromion (Heortodromion, roughly “the course/itinerary of the feasts”) — a vast and learned commentary on the canons sung at the great feasts of the Lord and of the Theotokos in the Orthodox liturgical year (Nicodemus of the Holy Mountain, OrthodoxWiki, listing the Eortodromion among his liturgical commentaries). The festal canons — the long poetic hymns of Sts. John of Damascus, Cosmas of Maiouma, and other Byzantine hymnographers, dense with theology and scriptural allusion — are among the most beautiful and most difficult texts in Orthodox worship. Nicodemus’s Eortodromion unfolds them: explaining their theology, tracing their scriptural and patristic sources, and opening their meaning to clergy and faithful who heard them sung but could not always penetrate them. It is the hymnographic counterpart to his other editorial labors — making the inherited tradition intelligible and usable, here in the domain of liturgical poetry.

The New Theotokarion

Closely related is the New Theotokarion (Neon Theotokarion) — a collection of canons in honor of the Most Holy Theotokos, the Mother of God, gathered and edited (and in part composed) by Nicodemus from the rich Byzantine tradition of Marian hymnody (Nicodemus of the Holy Mountain, OrthodoxWiki). A Theotokarion is a book of canons to the Theotokos for the days of the week and the seasons; Nicodemus’s “new” recension assembled and enriched this devotional treasury, restoring to circulation many canons that had fallen out of use and providing the faithful with an ample resource of Marian prayer. The work reflects the deep Athonite and Orthodox devotion to the Mother of God — Athos itself being “the Garden of the Theotokos” — and it stands alongside the Eortodromion as Nicodemus’s gift to the sung and prayed life of the Church.

The Liturgist Behind the Editor

These liturgical labors are easy to overlook beside the Philokalia and the Rudder, but they complete the portrait of Nicodemus and reveal the unity of his work. He was not only a scholar of texts but a man of the choir and the cell, formed by the daily and festal worship of the Holy Mountain, and his hymnographic work springs from that life of prayer. The same man who argued for frequent Communion (see The Treatise on Communion) and edited the neptic Fathers also bent his learning to the canons sung at Matins — because for Nicodemus, as for the Kollyvades generally, the spiritual life, the eucharistic life, and the liturgical life were one seamless whole, and the renewal of one required the renewal of all. The portrait that emerges is of a man who served the Church’s worship at every level: its canons, its Fathers, its saints’ lives, its hymns, and its sacraments.

Ethics for the Laity in the Ottoman World

The pastoral significance of the Christian Morality is sharpened when it is set against its historical moment. Nicodemus wrote for an Orthodox people living under Ottoman rule, a Christian society without a Christian state, in which the Church bore almost the whole weight of forming the moral and devout life of the faithful (Nicodemus of the Holy Mountain, OrthodoxWiki). In such a world a book that taught ordinary Christians — merchants, farmers, householders — how to govern their passions, keep modesty and truthfulness, and order their daily occupations toward God was not a minor devotional aid but an instrument of communal survival and identity. The Chrēstoētheia (1803) addresses precisely these readers, calling them away from worldly conformity and moral laxity to a serious, examined life of Christian conduct in the midst of secular toil (Nicodemus of the Holy Mountain, OrthodoxWiki; Constantine Cavarnos, St. Nicodemos the Hagiorite, Belmont, MA: Institute for Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies, 1974). It expresses the Kollyvades conviction, central to all of Nicodemus’s work, that the renewal of Orthodox life was meant for the whole Church and not for the monasteries alone (see The Athonite Renewal).

The Genre of Chrestoetheia

The very title Chrēstoētheia — literally “good morals” or “good conduct” — names a recognized genre of Christian moral instruction with deep roots in the tradition (Cavarnos, St. Nicodemos the Hagiorite, 1974). A chrestoetheia is a treatise on right behavior, a handbook of the virtues and the manners that befit a Christian, ordering both the inner dispositions and the outward bearing of the believer. In writing one, Nicodemus took his place in a long line of Christian moral teachers, but he gave the genre the same patristic saturation that marks all his work: his counsel rests on Scripture and the Fathers, and it reads the moral life not as mere social propriety but as the outer expression of the inner warfare of watchfulness he taught the monks (Cavarnos, St. Nicodemos the Hagiorite, 1974; see The Handbook of Spiritual Counsel). The Christian Morality is thus the lay counterpart of the Handbook: where the Handbook trains the pastor in the guarding of the senses, the Chrēstoētheia carries the same ethic of self-governance into the ordinary Christian’s life in the world.

The Festal Canons and Their Hymnographers

The Eortodromion‘s greatness lies in the texts it unfolds. The festal canons of the Orthodox year are among the supreme achievements of Byzantine sacred poetry, the work above all of St. John of Damascus and St. Cosmas of Maiouma in the eighth century, whose canons for Pascha, Nativity, Theophany, and the Lord’s and the Theotokos’s feasts are dense with theology, scriptural typology, and dogmatic precision (Nicodemus of the Holy Mountain, OrthodoxWiki; Cavarnos, St. Nicodemos the Hagiorite, 1974). A canon is a structured hymn of (originally) nine odes, each rooted in one of the scriptural canticles, sung at Matins; the genre compresses an entire theology of the feast into poetry that the faithful hear but cannot always penetrate. Nicodemus’s commentary opens these canons word by word — tracing their biblical sources, expounding their doctrine, and making the inherited treasure intelligible (Nicodemus of the Holy Mountain, OrthodoxWiki). In this he does for the Church’s sung theology exactly what the Philokalia does for its neptic theology and the Rudder for its canons: he renders the tradition usable, ensuring that the great hymnographers’ theology is not merely chanted but understood (see Orthodoxy Guide: The Divine Liturgy).

The Garden of the Theotokos

The New Theotokarion belongs to a current of devotion that runs especially deep on the Holy Mountain, which the tradition calls “the Garden of the Theotokos” — the place set apart under the Mother of God’s particular protection (Nicodemus of the Holy Mountain, OrthodoxWiki). A Theotokarion gathers canons to the Theotokos for the days of the week and the seasons, supplying the monk and the faithful with an ample treasury of Marian prayer; Nicodemus’s “new” recension restored to circulation many canons that had fallen out of use and enriched the whole collection from the vast Byzantine inheritance of Marian hymnody (Nicodemus of the Holy Mountain, OrthodoxWiki; Cavarnos, St. Nicodemos the Hagiorite, 1974). That an editor of the neptic Fathers and the conciliar canons should also labor over hymns to the Theotokos is no incongruity but a revelation of the wholeness of Athonite piety, in which the sternest watchfulness and the tenderest Marian devotion belong together. The work stands beside the Eortodromion as Nicodemus’s gift to the sung and prayed life of the Church, and it carries the Holy Mountain’s love of the Theotokos into the daily prayer of Orthodox Christians wherever his books are read.

References

Nicodemus of the Holy Mountain. OrthodoxWiki, orthodoxwiki.org. (The Chrestoethia of Christians, 1803; the Eortodromion and other liturgical commentaries; the New Theotokarion; his hymnography and composed services.)
Cavarnos, Constantine. St. Nicodemos the Hagiorite (Modern Orthodox Saints, vol. 3). Belmont, MA: Institute for Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies, 1974. On Nicodemus as moralist, hymnographer, and liturgical commentator.
The Eortodromion and New Theotokarion of St. Nicodemus, in their Greek editions; later reprints and partial translations exist within the Greek liturgical tradition.