Niketas Stethatos (Greek: Νικήτας Στηθᾶτος, Latin: Nicetas Pectoratus; c. 1005 – c. 1090) was a Byzantine mystic and theologian who is considered a saint by the Eastern Orthodox Church.

[3] Niketas Stethatos is credited with defending Symeon the New Theologian's teachings on hesychast prayer, which were considered subversive even by some eastern church authorities.

[4] Niketas later supported Michael Cerularius in 1054, taking part in the conflict that became the East-West Schism, writing anti-Latin treatises criticizing the use of unleavened bread, Sabbath fasting, and the celibacy of priests.

[3] Niketas' personal works include polemical writings and treatises on the soul, on paradise, on the meaning of hierarchy, and on the limits of human life.

The titles describe three main stages on the spiritual path: praktiki (practice of the commandments); physiki (meditation on the essence of creation); gnosis (the direct knowledge of God).

Niketas' attitude to the spiritual life is fundamentally positive, and that true sanctity is only a return, through grace, to man's natural condition.

[6] "The rays of primordial Light that illumine purified souls with spiritual knowledge not only fill them with benediction and luminosity; they also, by means of the contemplation of the inner essences of created things, lead them up to the noetic heavens.