Prochorus Cydones - Citizendia

Prochorus Cydones, also spelled Prochoros Kydones or Prochorus Cydonius (born c. 1330 in Thessalonica, died c. 1369 on Mount Athos) was an Eastern Orthodox monk, theologian, and linguist. The Eastern Orthodox Church is the second largest single Christian Communion in the world An advocate of Western Aristotelian thought, his translation of Latin Scholastic writings, brought him into conflict with Hesychasm, the leading school of Byzantine mystical theology, and its most vigorous defender, Gregory Palamas. Hesychasm ( Greek hesychasmos, from hesychia, "stillness rest quiet silence" is an Eremitic tradition of Prayer in Saint Gregory Palamas (Γρηγόριος Παλαμάς (1296 - 1359 was a monk of Mount Athos in Greece and later the Archbishop of

Born in the Byzantine city of Thessalonica, Prochorus entered the Great Lavra, a monastery on Mount Athos at a young age, and was eventually ordained a hieromonk. The Monastery of Great Lavra (Μονή Μεγίστης Λαύρας is the first monastery built on Mount Athos. Mount Athos (Όρος Άθως is a mountain on the Peninsula of the same name in Macedonia, of northern Greece, called in Greek Άγιον Hieromonk, or Hieroschemamonk, Eastern Orthodox Christianity, ( Greek: Ἱερομόναχος Ieromonachos; Slavonic: Ieromonakh He was greatly influenced by Western Scholasticism. Scholasticism was the dominant form of theology and philosophy in the Latin West in the Middle Ages, particularly in the 12th 13th and 14th centuries He collaborated with his brother Demetrius in translating Thomas Aquinas' monumental Summa Theologiae. Prochorus also made Greek translations of the works of Augustine of Hippo and the 6th-century philosopher Boethius. Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius (480&ndash524 or 525 was a Christian philosopher of the 6th century

Prochorus' own treatise, De essentia et operatione Dei (“On the Essence and Activity of God”), was a condemnation of the mystical theology of Gregory Palamas. The Synod of Constantinople in 1368 condemned both of the brothers Cydones as heretics, and Prochorus was deposed from the priesthood. The chief source for Prochorus' life is a pair of polemical addresses by Demetrius, eulogizing his brother and denouncing Patriarch Philotheus Kokkinos, who had been responsible for their condemnation. Philotheus Kokkinos ( Thessaloniki c 1300 &ndash Constantinople 1379 was the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople for three periods from November 1353

See also