Prayer at the place of asceticism of Saint Gregory Palamas (Second Sunday of Lent 2026)

On the Second Sunday of Lent after the Divine Liturgy, the Fathers of the Vatopedi Brotherhood with the Abbot Elder Ephraim went on a devout pilgrimage near the Monastery to the place of asceticism of Saint Nicodemus the Hesychast and Saint Gregory Palamas, where they performed a prayer. The Vatopedi Monastery during the 14th century was a powerful, prosperous and renowned center of hesychastism. That is why it gathered within and around it important hesychast figures such as Saints Savvas the Younger, Gregory Palamas, Philotheos Kokkinos and Nicodemus the Hesychast. “All of them were ardent advocates of the hesychast experience and theology and they choose as their place of asceticism, either the Monastery or its neighboring cells.” Saint Nicodemus was an ascetic in a cell near the Vatopedi Monastery at the beginning of the 14th century. There, Saint Gregory Palamas found him as a hermit and, because of his great virtue, wanted to submit to him. Being near Saint Nicodemus, Saint Gregory had perfect obedience and submission, constant fasting and vigil, unceasing prayer, ardent theotokophilia, apparitions and high spiritual states, to which the theoretic and discerning Saint Nicodemus led and maintained him. All the biographers of Saint Gregory Palamas refer to the Elder Saint Nicodemus and call him: “a brave and wonderful Monk in deed and theory, known throughout the Holy Mountain for his virtue.” "It is well known to all the Athonites. Nicodemus lived a hesychast life and was a great Elder." The source of all the information is Saint Philotheos the Red. According to Saint Philotheos, Saint Gregory Palamas stayed with Saint Nicodemus for three years (1319-1322) until the blessed repose of the Saint.