The life of St Maximos Kavsokalybites
He built himself small huts of woven branches, only to burn them and move on, again and again, which is how he came to be called Kavsokalybites, the hut-burner.
Gregory of Sinai, meeting him on the mountain and testing his words, recognized beneath the folly a man given wholly to unceasing prayer, and persuaded him to set the outward strangeness aside and speak plainly of what he had learned in solitude. Maximos became known afterward as a guide in the prayer of the heart, and his life touched the controversy then stirring on Athos over the nature of Hesychast prayer, where he stood with those, including Gregory Palamas, who defended it. He remained in the wilderness of the Holy Mountain for the better part of a lifetime and reposed in 1365, at about ninety five years of age.
