Neophytos Rodinos

Neophytos Rodinos (; 1576/7–1659) was a 17th-century Greek Cypriot scholar and Catholic missionary. Born in Ottoman Cyprus, he later converted from Eastern Orthodoxy to Catholicism and undertook missionary work preaching in Italy, Poland, Greece, Turkey and Albania. Rodinos was a professor of classical Greek with enormous educational activity until his death,

Life Early life

Neophytos Rodinos was born in 1576/7 at the village of Potamiou, in Ottoman Cyprus.

During the 1590s, Rodinos became a student of scholar Leontios Efstratios, but he soon moved to Candia, Crete, probably in search for a better education. He attended classes at the metochion of Saint Catherine's Monastery of Sinai and in 1596 was ordained a monk there.

On the recommendation of scholar Ioannis Morezinos, abbot of the metochion of Sinai, he went to Venice, where he became a student of Maximos Margunios and worked as his subordinate from 1599 to 1602.

Education and conversion to Catholicism

After Margounios' death in Venice in 1602, Rodinos converted to the Roman Catholic Church. There, he studied Greek, Latin, and Logic, and graduated in 1610. He then enlisted in the Catholic congregation Propaganda Fide (now the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples). He was then sent to Apulia for missionary work, and returned to Rome in 1629.

Other stations in his life were Patmos and Ainos. He visited the region four to five times during this period. Though various contradicting accounts about Rodinos's foundation of educational institutions exist, modern scholarship agrees that in 1627 he founded a school in Himarë as part of his mission, the first Catholic school in southern Albania. Lessons were taught in the Greek language there. Rodinos also passed through Nivicë, Albania, where he founded a school in 1648. Rodinos was assisted by other Cypriot missionaries especially in Himarë such as Athanasios Konstantzos, Kalimeras, and Ioannis Chrysadifas, who were also active in various Greek-inhabited regions.

In 1639, while in Himarë, Rodinos reported to the Catholic mission that he planned to translate liturgical books in Albanian, assisted by an Albanian-speaking priest. His missionary work gained popularity and he was targeted by the Greek Orthodox bishop of Ioannina. The suffragan Orthodox bishop of Himarë was ordered to use all possible means to stop Catholic missionary work. Greek Orthodox priests attacked and excommunicated those who were drawn to Catholic missionaries. Rodinos reported in 1642 that his life was in danger in a very hostile environment.

Rodinos also managed to distribute all copies of the first edition of his work Σύνοψις (Synopsis) in Greece (across Thessaly, Epirus, and especially in Ioannina) as well as in Albania. Although he also aimed at translating a two-page catechesis (doctrina christiana) to Albanian in cooperation with his student Papa Demetrios, a priest of Albanian origin from Dhërmi, he was dissuaded from doing so because the Propaganda Fide had already printed one earlier. In the following years, his newly printed works – the second edition of Synopsis, Περί Εξομολογήσεως (On Confession) and Πνευματική Πανοπλία (Spiritual Armor) – were circulated in Epirus and other areas of the Ottoman Empire. In the region of Himarë he distributed those books himself. As such, the Ecumenical Patriarch, Cyril Loukaris, became his main antagonist.

Later life Rodinos returned to Cyprus in 1656. He died there in 1659 at the Kykkos Monastery. The year of his death, the first edition of his last work was published in Rome: Περί ηρώων, στρατηγών, φιλοσόφων, αγίων και άλλων ονομαστών ανδρών, οπού ευγήκασιν από το νησί της Κύπρου (On Heroes, Generals, Philosophers, Saints and other noble men, where they emigrated from the island of Cyprus, 1659). It is considered one of the first essays written in vernacular Greek, and played a decisive role in shaping the national consciousness of the Greek diaspora during the following years.

Legacy Rodinos generally believed that support from western Europe to overthrow Ottoman rule would be possible if the native populations in Greece accepted the Roman Catholic Church.

Works In addition to his theological works published by the Propaganda Congregation, he wrote a large number of other pieces. His work is generally divided into three categories:

Ecclesiastical works, including catechisms, prayer books, confession books, and martyrologies Logographic works, essays and sermons: Περί Εξομολογήσεως (On Confession, 1630) Πνευματική Πανοπλία (Spiritual Armor, 1630) Άσκησις Πνευματική (Spiritual Asceticism, 1641) Απόκρισις εις την Επιστολήν Ιωάννου Πρεσβυτέρου και Ρεφενδαρίου της Εκκλησίας της Παραμυθιάς (Response to the Letter of John the Elder and Refendario of the Church of Paramythia, 1659) Περί ηρώων, στρατηγών, φιλοσόφων, αγίων και άλλων ονομαστών ανδρών, οπού ευγήκασιν από το νησί της Κύπρου (On Heroes, Generals, Philosophers, Saints and other noble men, where they emigrated from the island of Cyprus, 1659). Translations: Εγχειρίδιο και Μονολόγιο του Αυγουστίνου (Augustine's Manual and Monologue) and various synaxes An unknown number of Rodinos' works and letters survive as manuscripts in several libraries, especially in the Vatican.