PATRISTICS/ Diadochus of Photikë
Saint Diadochos of Photiki was a fifth century ascetic whose work is included in the Philokalia.
Diadochos was born c. 400 and died sometime before 486. He became bishop of Photiki, a small town in the province of Old Epira, in the northwestern part of present-day Greece. In 451, he took part in the Council of Chalcedon as Bishop of Photiki.
He was most likely part of a group of Epiran notables who were captured during a Vandal raid between 467 and 474. The group was later released in North Africa, somewhere around Carthage, from whence all vanished. His exact date and place of death are thus unknown, although it is assumed he died before 486.
Diadochos' writing and ascetic practice were greatly influenced by Evagrius the Solitary (also known as Evagrius Ponticus) and Saint Macarius of Egypt (the Great), incorporating their ideas of hesychia ("stillness, rest, quiet"), sensible spiritual experience, and the fierceness of the fight against the demons.
Scholars have acknowledged his great influence on later Byzantine saints such as Maximos the Confessor, John Climacus, Symeon the New Theologian, and in general the Hesychast movement of the 14th century. He has also had great influence in the West via the work, "On the Contemplative Life" (De vita contemplativa) of Julian Pomerius (+498).
His feast day is commemorated on March 29.
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