Venerable Venerable Gregory of Sinai

Saint Gregory of Sinai (c. 1268 – 1346) was a Byzantine monastic ascetic and one of the principal figures in the 14th-century revival of Hesychasm. Born in a coastal settlement near Smyrna in Asia Minor, he was captured as a youth by Saracen raiders, ransomed by Christian merchants, and withdrew to Cyprus, where he embraced monastic life.

He then travelled to Mount Sinai, receiving the great schema and the epithet "Sinaite." After visiting the holy sites of Palestine, he settled on Crete, where he learned the practice of noetic prayer from the elder Arsenios, before moving to Mount Athos around 1310. There he spent roughly a quarter-century at a skete near Philotheou Monastery, teaching monks the unceasing Jesus Prayer and inner watchfulness.

Turkish raids on Athos forced his departure around 1335; he relocated to Paroria in the Strandzha mountains of Bulgaria, where, under the protection of Tsar Ivan Alexander, he founded a hermitage and lavra, training many disciples, including the future Patriarch Callistus I. His ascetical writings were later collected in the Philokalia. He reposed at his monastery in Paroria on November 27, 1346.