The Kollyvades (Greek: Κολλυβάδες) were the members of a movement within the Eastern Orthodox Church that began in the second half of the eighteenth century among the monastic community of Mount Athos, which was concerned with the restoration of traditional practices and opposition to unwarranted innovations, and which turned unexpectedly into a movement of spiritual regeneration.
As Bishop Kallistos of Diokleia succinctly points out: throughout the Turkish period the traditions of Hesychasm remained alive, particularly on Mount Athos.
The terms “Kollyvades”, “Kollyvistai”, and “Sabbatianoi” were epithets which were originally meant sarcastically as bitter insults, however over the passage of time these contemptuous appellations became a title or badge of honor.
The movement arose in 1754 out of a dispute within the Skete of St. Anne at Mount Athos when a group of monks objected to the scheduling of the commemoration of the dead on Sunday, the day that represented the Resurrection and Christ's victory over death, instead of Saturday or weekdays as it had been according to ancient custom.
While much animosity developed between the groups, the movement of the Kollyvades, as they became known, became part of an attempt to address deficiencies in spiritual life that had arisen in the Church since Byzantine times.
[2] In addition to the issue of following proper ritualistic traditions, there was a concern for return to a Eucharistic-centered spirituality and to the precepts preached by the Hesychasts of the fourteenth century.
In 1819 a Council at Constantinople endorsed the views of the Kollyvades fathers that Holy Communion should be partaken of regularly by clergy and faithful alike.