NILO DOXAPATRIS. — A Greek monk of Sicily, author of two geographical treatises on the patriarchates, active at the end of the 11th century, and probably died in the second half of the 12th century. Before his religious life, he was called Nicola. He served as a deacon of Hagia Sophia in Constantinople, performing ecclesiastical functions, and at the same time, as a nomophylax of the Empire, he carried out civil duties, following the custom of other clerics of Hagia Sophia who held such a dual role.
It is also known that he was a notary of the patriarchate; in this capacity, he must have acquired a deep knowledge of the patriarchal archives. However, he renounced his career and entered monastic life in his native Sicily under the Norman king Roger II (1101–54), a patron of Greek monasticism. At Roger’s request, N. composed two treatises on ecclesiastical-geographical statistics: an *Epitome of the Limits (of Jurisdiction) of the Most Holy Patriarchs* and an enumeration of the apostolic sees, composed in Palermo around 1142–43, and the *Treatise of the Five Patriarchs*, written in the first months of 1142–43. While the *Epitome* does not have an anti-Roman character, the second treatise contains observations against the primacy of the pope.