Kollyvadic Fathers

CYRIL HOVORUN

These were monastics who participated in the Kollyvadic Movement beginning on Mount Athos in the mid-18th century, which advocated faithfulness to traditional liturgical and monastic traditions. Its active phase lasted until the beginning of the 19th century. Some of the kollyvades were mere zealots for certain liturgical forms – such as the restriction of the blessing of wheat as a commemoration of the dead (Kollyva) – to Saturdays only. The sobriquet “kollyvades” derived from this as an ironic criticism of them. Others in the movement sought after the deeper revival of hesy- chastic and coenobitic monasticism at large. Among the latter were St. Makarios of Corinth (the compiler of the Philokalia) and his co-worker St. Nikodemos the Hagiorite (who wrote widely on Eucharistic, monastic, hagiographical, pastoral, and canonical issues). Another leading Kollyvadist was St. Athanasios of Paros, a significant polemicist against Latin Christianity and western secularism. Several Kollyvadists advocated more frequent reception of the Holy Eucharist.