NEOPHYTUS ENKLESTUS. – A solitary “recluse,” as his name indicates. Born at Leucara (Cyprus) in 1134, the date of his death is unknown. Very young he embraced the monastic life, which he later abandoned after many vicissitudes to shut himself up in a cavern near Paphos.
That solitary place soon became the famous monastery of Enclestra, where Neophytus was ordained priest and composed his Διδασκαλία. He then sought even greater solitude in the mountains, in the cell-reclusory of Néo. Σύνοψις. Not a few are his works, partly edited in Venice by Kiprianos in 1779; the fragment De calamitatibus Cypri has been published several times (PG 135, 495-502).
BIBL.: L. Petit, Vie et ouvrages de N. le Rebis, in Echos d'Orient, 2 (1898-99), pp. 257-68; H. Delchaye, Saints de Chypre, in Anal. Bolland., 26 (1907), pp. 161-297; J. Ch. Chatzelouannou, Ιστορία και έργα Νεοφύτου... "Εγκλειστού, Alessandro 1914.