ATANASIO di PARO. — Greek dissident theologian and polemicist, born on the island of Paro around 1725, died on the island of Chio on 24 June 1813. Having chosen the monastic life, he studied theology at the Academy of Athos under the celebrated Eugenio Bulgaris, whom he succeeded as director of the school; but he soon had to leave it for having taken part in the controversy known as that of the colybes, which, toward the end of the eighteenth century, divided the Athonite monks into two opposing camps (v. L. Petit, La grande controverse des colybes, in Echos d'Orient, 2 [1899], pp. 321–31). Excommunicated in 1776 by Patriarch Sophronios II (1774–80), he was absolved, after making a public retraction, in 1781, and was able to continue his life as a professor and preacher until his death. From 1792 he directed a large school in Chio.
His writings, several of which remain unpublished, concern theology, hagiography, preaching, and grammar. Among those published, the following may be noted: 1) Χριστιανική ἀπολογία (Christian Apology; Constantinople 1768), published without the author’s name, in which A. refutes the revolutionary ideas of liberty and equality; 2) a manual of theology entitled Ἐπιτομή εἶπε συλλογὴ τῶν θείων τῆς πίστεως δυγμάτων (Leipzig 1806), a fairly summary and incomplete compendium in which the Latins are frequently attacked; 3) Διδασκαλία πατρική (Constantinople 1798), a diatribe against the followers of modern progress, that is, against Catholics and the philosophers of the eighteenth century; 4) a pamphlet against Latin religious: Réfutation dirigée contre le zèle déplacé des philosophes d'Europe, montrant combien veine et déraisonnable est leur compassion pour notre ruce (Trieste 1802), published under the pseudonym of Nathanaël de Néocésarée.