St. Nicodemus of Svyatogorets, baptised Nicholas, was born in 1748 on the Greek island of Naxos. At the age of 26, he came to the Holy Mount Athos and there, in the monastery of Dionysiates, he took vows with the name Nicodemus.
At first, Monk Nicodemus carried the obedience of a reader and a scribe. Two years after his admission to the monastery, Metropolitan Macarius of Corinth arrived on Mount Athos, who instructed the young monk to prepare for the publication of the manuscript "Philokalia", which he found in 1777 in the Vatopedi monastery. The work on this book was the beginning of many years of literary work by Nicodemus of Svyatogorets. Soon the young monk moved to the Pantocrator skete, in obedience to the elder Arseny Peloponnessus, under whose guidance he zealously studied the Holy Scriptures and the works of the holy fathers. 
In 1783, St. Nicodemus accepted the schema and remained in perfect silence for six years. When Metropolitan Macarius of Corinth arrived on Mount Athos again, he entrusted St. Nicodemus with a new obedience – editing the works of St. Simeon the New Theologian. St. Nicodemus abandoned the feat of silence and resumed his literary work. From that time until his death, he continued to work zealously in this field.
Shortly before his death, the Monk Nicodemus, tired of bookish labors and ascetic labors, moved into residence with the icon-painting hieromonks Stephen and Neophyte Skurtey (Kutsovlakh). He begged them to start publishing his works, which he could no longer do himself because of his painful condition. Here, at Skurteev, on July 1, 1809, St. Nicodemus peacefully departed to the Lord.
According to the testimony of his contemporaries, St. Nicodemus was simple, gentle, non-possessive, and distinguished by deep concentration. He had a remarkable memory: He knew the Holy Scriptures by heart, remembering even chapters, verses and pages, and could quote from memory a lot of the works of the holy fathers.
The literary works of Elder Nicodemus are diverse. He wrote the preface to the Philokalia and short lives of ascetics. The book "The Invisible Battle", translated into Russian by the great ascetic theologian, Bishop Theophan the Recluse (Moscow, 1886; ed. 5. Moscow, 1912). The ascetic's work "The Doctrine of Confession" (Venice, 1804, 1818) is remarkable, ending with a heartfelt "Word on Repentance." An interesting book by the monk is "The Goodness of Christians," published in Venice in 1803. The saint's services are also great in the field of publishing liturgical books. In 1796, he published 62 canons of the Most Holy Theotokos extracted from the Athos manuscript collections under the title "The Crown of the Ever–Virgin" (Venice, 1796, 1846).
St. Nicodemus prepared the publication of a new edition of the Pidalion, the Greek "Pilot Book" containing the rules of the Holy Apostles, the holy Ecumenical and Local Councils and the Holy Fathers.
The monk paid great attention to hagiography, as evidenced by his works such as The New Selection of the Lives of Saints (Venice, 1803) and the book The New Synaxary, published after his death in 3 volumes (Venice, 1819). He translated Archbishop Theophylact of Bulgaria's "Interpretation of the Epistles of St. Paul the Apostle" from ancient Greek into Modern Greek. Saint Nicodemus himself wrote an interpretation of the seven Epistles of the Council (also published in Venice in 1806 and 1819).
St. Nicodemus is also known as the creator and interpreter of sacred hymns. He compiled (accepted in the Russian Church) a canon in honor of the icon of the Mother of God, the Quick-Listening, as well as "The Service of the Venerable and God-Bearing Father, who shone forth on Mount Athos" ("Orthodox Church Calendar for 1976", p. 61), "Eortodromion or explanation of the canons of songs sung on the eve of the Lord's and Theotokos Feasts" (Venice, 1836), "The New Ladder, or the Interpretation of the 75 Power Cantos of the Octoechos" (Constantinople, 1844).