NICETAS STETHATOS. - Also called "Pectoratus" by the Latins, a monk of Stoudion, b. ca. 1000, d. after 1054. He carried on his activity in the field of spirituality and in controversy against the Jews, the Armenians and the Latins. His spiritual doctrine is inspired by the tradition of St. Maximus the Confessor. As a polemicist, N. took part in the struggle against Card. Humbert and the Roman legates in the time of Michael Cerularius, in 1054. His intervention is often undervalued more than is just; it seems in fact that N. was the first and principal anti-Latin theologian in this period.
N. left numerous writings, in part still unpublished, whose complete list is found in Th. Disdier (v. bibl.). Among his works of spirituality the principal ones are: Life of Symeon the New Theologian (ed. I. Hausherr, op. cit. in bibl.); Capita practica, physica et gnostica (PG 120, 815-1009); The Spiritual Paradise (recently ed. by M. Chalendard, Paris 1943).
As a polemicist he wrote at least four treatises against the azymes, of which only the following are known: one On leavened and unleavened bread, against the Armenians and against the Latins (in J. Hergenröther, Monumenta graeca ad Photium eiusque historiam pertinentia, Ratisbon 1869, pp. 129-44), the Libellus against the Latins reported in Latin by Card. Humbert (PL 143, 973-84), in Greek by A. Demetrakopoulos (Ἐκκλησιαστικὴ Βιβλιοθήκη, I, Leipzig 1866, p. 18-36) and in a critical edition under the title of Antidialogus by A. Michel (Humbert und Kerullarios, II, Paderborn 1930, pp. 322-42) and the Synthesis against the Latins on the Procession of the Holy Spirit, made known by A. Michel (ibid., pp. 371-409).
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Maurizio Gordillo