Nikitas Stithatos, 11th-Cent. Controversialist and nearly-forgotten Spiritual Master – Professor Andrew Louth

Nikitas Stithatos was the biographer and editor of St Symeon the New Theologian. He was involved in the debates with the Latins in 1054, and earlier with the Armenians. He was a monk of the Stoudios Monastery and a staunch defender of their customs, and a spiritual writer (his three centuries on the spiritual life were included in the Philokalia). For those not familiar with his work, one could say that he is, in some ways, mutatis multibus mutandis, a kind of mid-Byzantine Thomas Traherne.
Andrew Louth, Professor Emeritus of Patristic and Byzantine Studies in the Department of Theology and Religion, Durham University, and Rector of the Orthodox Parish of St Cuthbert and St Bede, Durham.