Neophytos Rodinos

Neophytos Rodinos (Νεόφυτος Ροδινός, 1576/7–1659) was a 17th-century Greek Cypriot scholar and Catholic missionary. Born in Cyprus he later converted to Roman Catholicism and undertook missionary work preaching in various regions: Italy, Poland, Greece, Turkey and Albania. Rodinos was a professor of classical Greek with enormous educational activity until his death, using vernacular Greek speech in his proselitizing missions. He was crucial in maintaining cultural ties between his native Cyprus and the wider Greek world as well as preserving a distinctive Greek literary and philosophical tradition.

Early life
Neophytos Rodinos was born in 1576/7 at the village of Potamiou, in Cyprus. His father Solomon Rodinos (1515 - 1575/6) was a scholar and poet who composed the threnos "Lament of Cyprus" which described the Ottoman conquest of Cyprus (1571).

During the 1590s he became a student of scholar Leontios Efstratios, but Rodinos soon moved to Candia, Crete, probably in search for a better education. There he attended classes at the metochion of Saint Catherine's Monastery of Sinai and in 1596 he was ordained a monk there. Because of this important milestone in his life he always signed his works under the full name "Neophytos Rodinos Cypriot Sinaitis".

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 also worked as his subordinate (1599-1602). Margunios was a professor at the Greek School in Venice that timr Iason Sozomenos.

Higher Education and conversion to Catholicism
After Margounios' death in Venice in 1602, Rodinos converted to the Roman Catholic Church. In the period 1602-1607 he returned to Cyprus, where he set up a tutorial in a monastery, but he encountered opposition to this initiative and was forced to abandon it. In 1607 at the suggestion of the abbot of the monastery of Saint John the Theologian in Patmos, Nikephoros Chartophylax, he attended classes at the Pontifical Greek College of Saint Athanasius in Rome. He studied there Greek, Latin and Logic and graduated in 1610. At that period he had special relations with scholars Gavriel Severos, Georgios Korresios and Frangiskos Kokkos.

Rodinos converted to Catholicism most probably in the spring of 1607 in Venice. As with many Greeks who traveled to western Europe at this period a passive drift into the Catholic faith may be more accurate a description of their progress than a conscious conversion. He then enlisted in the Catholic Propaganda Fide. Rodinos then became a tireless worker for the Union of the Roman Catholic and the Orthodox Churches by the apparatus of the Congregatio de Propaganda Fide.

Rodinos then continued his philosophical and theological studies at the University of Salamanca, Spain (1610-1616). At the meantime he became a professor of classical Greek there. He wasn't the first Greek scholar to teach at Salamanca since Paranomaris did so some decades earlier. There he transcribed numerous Greek codices. He also attended courses at University of Coimbra, Portugal. He became also active in the Dauphiné region, France.

Missionary and educational work
Rodinos went to Poland and at the following years he was ordained a priest by a Uniate Ruthenian bishop. In 1620 he visited various Greek regions in the Ottoman Empire and then settled in Sicily, where he taught Greek at Mezzojuso (1622-1625). Meanwhile, he was sent to Apulia, southern Italy for missionary work and returned to Rome in 1629. He visited Neaples frequently (at 1630, 1643, 1645 and 1655) where he taught Greek at the local University, being at the same time the parish priest of the Neapolitan Greek Orthodox Church.

Other stations in his life were Patmos and Ainos. Additionally based on autobiographic accounts he also visited the Sinai peninsula and Alexandria, Egypt.

During c. 1628 to 1648 he developed missionary activity in Ottoman ruled areas and especially Epirus. Rodinos used the vernacular Greek speech during the proselitizing missions. He visited the region four to five timed during this period.

In general, he went through area's of Epirus (today's southern Albania and northwestern Greece) such as Himarë, Ioannina, Pogoniani, trying to set up schools and undertaking educational work. Rodinos unsuccessfully attempted to found a school in Ioannina. Though various contradicting accounts about Rodinos' foundation of educational institutions exist modern scholarship agrees that in 1627 he founded a school in Himara as part of his mission. This was 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 also 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 and in the region Rodinos was assisted by a priest who spoke Albanian. His missionary work gained popularity and he was targeted by the Greek Orthodox bishop of Ioannina. The suffragan Orthodox bishop of Himara 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 in Greece: Thessaly, Epirus, especially in Ioannina as well as in Albania. Although he also aimed at translating a two-paged 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. The following years his newly printed works Σύνοψις (second edition), Περί Εξομολογήσεως (On Confession) and Πνευματική Πανοπλία (Spiritual Armor) were circulated in Epirus and to other areas of the Ottoman Empire. In the region of Himara he distributed those books himself.

Rodinos being a Greek scholar and educated in western Europe was well received by the Christian population in Epirus since he was also active in undertaking educational initiatives. On the other hand, the Greek Orthodox leadership saw in his person a dangerous propagandist of the Roman Catholic Church. As such the head Ecumenical Patriarchate, Cyril Loukaris, became his main antagonist. In this context although Rodinos was invited in 1633 by the metropolitan bishop of Ioannina, Parthenios, he had to decline the invitation. The same reasons also led Rodinos to decline an invitation from the bishop of Paramythia, Porphyrios. In his correspondence he expresses his joy when being informed that the metropolitan bishops of Adrianoupolis and Chalcedon had attempted to dethrone Loukaris.

Later life
Rodinos never lost connection with his homeland. As such he returned to Cyprus at an older age (1656). He died there in 1659 at Kykkos Monastery. At that time 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 was most probably composed shortly before that year. The work comprises a historical treatise and collection of speeches inspired by the history of Cyprus. In this context the Rodinos projects notable spiritual figures of the local -ancient and Christian- past. It is considered one of the first essays written in vernacular Greek which played a decisive role in shaping the national consciousness of the Greek diaspora during the following years. The first edition of the work was printed in 1659 in Rome at the year of his death.

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

Rodinos is the most important Cypriot prose writer and the most prominent 17th century Cypriot scholar while his voluminous work still awaits its systematic scholars and editors.

Rodino's work was central to the spread of Catholicism among the Greek-speaking Orthodox of the East and Italy in the transitional period at the beginning of the 17th century. He played a crucial role in maintaining Cypriot ties to a wider Greek world and a distinctive Greek literary and philosophical tradition.

He is also considered a forerunner of Frangiskos Skoufos, Ilias Miniatis, Rigas Feraios and Kosmas the Aetolian.

Works
An as yet unspecified number of Rodinos' works and letters survive in manuscripts form in several libraries, especially in the Vatican. His work is particularly notable for his exceptional ability to handle the early modern Greek language.

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


 * Ecclesiastical works, including:
 * Catechisms, prayer books, confession books, 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