Maximos the Greek, Saint
Saint Maximos the Greek was born in Arta, Greece in 1470, studied at the greater universities of his time, and afterwards became a monk at the Holy Monastery of Vatopaidi around 1505/6, where he lived for a decade. In 1516, at the invitation of the great ruler of Russia, Basil III, he went to Russia in order to translated and correct various ecclesiastical books; he lived there for the rest of his years until 1556. Though during the initial years of his stay in Russia he dined with the czar and with the Metropolitan of Moscow Barlaam and was graced with the overall respect of the clerics and the laypeople, he incited the ill-will of certain ecclesiastical elements in Russia and was slandered, unjustly leading to his imprisonment for the next 26 years. Despite this, he did not cease to console and admonish the people of God or to perform a great variety of spiritual, social and cultural works. He was characterized as a wise philosopher, a teacher, a “new theologian”, a genuine pastor and a confessor, as well as by the Russians themselves as an “enlightener of the Russians”.