Maximus the Greek

Maximus the Greek

(born 1480, Árta, Greece—died 1556, near Moscow, Russia; feast day January 21) Greek scholar and linguist. Educated in Paris, Venice, and Florence, he became part of a circle of humanist scholars and was influenced by the Dominican reformer Girolamo Savonarola. He became a Greek Orthodox monk and was chosen to translate Greek liturgical and theological texts into Russian, thus making possible the dissemination of Byzantine culture throughout Russia. In Moscow he became involved in a religious controversy when he joined a faction called the Nonpossessors, who advocated renunciation of property ownership by the church. Arrested for heresy in 1525, he was imprisoned for 20 years in a monastery. After his death he was venerated as a saint.