Nikodim

Nikodim

a Russian monastic, greatly distinguised as a Church writer, flourished in the first half of the 18th century. He was a Dane by birth and a Lutheran by descent, and before his union with the Greek Church was called Adam Burchard Sellj. He was educated at the German universities, where he pursued studies in medicine and belles-lettres, as well as in philosophy and theology. In 1722 he made a journey to St. Petersburg; became a teacher at several clerical schools; served some time as secretary to the count Lestocq; adopted, in the year 1744, the Greek faith, on which occasion he received the name of Nestor, and one year later became a monk, when the additional name of Nikodim was given him. He died in 1746, and was buried in the monastery of Alexander Newskj. Ever after his first coming to Russia he had occupied himself upon the Russian language, and directed his attention towards Russian history. He collected in MS. and books all that had ever been written about Russia, labored himself uninterruptedly in copying and translating his different materials, and occupied himself in this way with some important works. In 1736 the following work was printed by him at Revel in the Latin language, Schediasma Literarium de Scriptoribus qui Historiam -Politico - Ecclesiasticam Rossice scriptis illustrarunt, where he gave, in alphabetical order, an accurate catalogue of almost all the works which have made any mention of Russia. The Russian translation of this small but useful book appeared at Moscow in 1815, and it may still be consulted with profit, notwithstanding the recent and more complete works of this kind by Meiners, Adelung, and the learned director of the imperial library at St. Petersburg, baron Modeste de Korff. — Another little work of his, A Historical Mirror of Russian Monarchs, from Rurik to the Empress Elizabeth Petrowana, was written in Latin verse; the original has been lost, but the Russian translation is printed in the first part of the "Ancient Russian Library." The third and most important of his works, De Rossorum Hierarchia, in five books, contains some very. important and interesting information respecting Russian Church history, with a sketch of its earliest origin. The original manuscript is preserved in the archives of the office for foreign affairs, and a translation of it appears in the first part of the History of the Russian Hierarchy. The works that he has left besides, unfinished or unpublished, cause deep regret that he did not live as long as the monk Nestor, the father of Russian history, whom he had taken for a model. Among his unfinished works, the archives of Moscow possess a Dictionary of all the Pictures of the Virgin Mary, and several Historical Notices on Russian Monasteries; and the library of St. Alexandre-Nevski a treatise upon medicine, some Souvenirs of his travels, written half in Latin, half in German and Danish, and a Recueil, forming fifteen volumes, of different pieces, mostly relative to the history of the Russian Church, several of which are perhaps unique. See Dict. Hist. des crivains de lEglise Greco-russe; Gretch, Essai (dhistoire de la Litterature Russe; Sopikof, Essai de Bibliographie Russe; Cox's Otto, History of Russian Literature (Oxford, 1839), p. 306, 307.