Venerable Nicephorus

Life

He was at first a Roman Catholic, but then converted to Orthodoxy. He struggled as a monk on the Holy Mountain with the wise Theoleptus. He was the teacher of the renowned Gregory Palamas and wrote a work on the prayer of the mind. He reposed peacefully in the Lord in the fourteenth century. He taught: "Gather thy mind and compel it to enter into the heart and to remain there. When thy mind is established in the heart, it must not stand idle, but unceasingly let it pray: Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me! And let it never fall silent. Through this an entire array of virtues will take up dwelling in thee: love, joy, peace, and the rest, on account of which every petition of thine to God will afterward be fulfilled."