Gregory of Sinai

Gregory of Sinai (c. 1265–1346) was a Byzantine monk, theologian, and a foremost hesychast teacher of the early fourteenth century. Born in a village near Clazomenae in western Asia Minor, he received monastic formation on Cyprus and at Mount Sinai — from which he takes his epithet — visited Jerusalem, and learned the practice of the Jesus Prayer on Crete from the elder Arsenios. He settled on Mount Athos around 1300 and spent roughly a quarter-century reviving and systematizing hesychast prayer among the Athonite monks, attracting disciples who carried the tradition across the Orthodox world. Driven from Athos by Ottoman raids (c. 1325–1328), he eventually founded a monastery at Paroria in the Strandzha Mountains under Bulgarian imperial patronage, turning it into a center that seeded Slavic hesychasm for generations. His writings, preserved in the Philokalia, are practical rather than speculative — detailed, authoritative guides to inner prayer and stillness rather than scholastic theology.