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In 1777, [[Saint]] [[Macarius Notaras of Corinth|Makarius of Corinth]] visited him and gave him three texts to edit and revise: the ''[[Philokalia]]'', a defining work on [[monastic]] spirituality, ''On Frequent Holy Communion'' and the ''Evergetinos,'' a collection drawing on the lives of the desert fathers. He also wrote original works such as ''Lives of the Saints''. He also later compiled the writings of St. [[Symeon the New Theologian ]] and the writings of St. [[Gregory Palamas]], although the latter collection was sadly and mistakenly destroyed amid political controversy over Greek revolts.

The Orthodox theological professor Fr. [[Stanley S. Harakas|Stanley Harakas]], in his preface to the 1989 English translation of the saint's "A Handbook of Spiritual Counsel" in the Classics of Western Spirituality series, wrote that "He embodied the best traditions of Orthodox Christianity, which may be characterized as holistic and integrative." And Dr. George Bebis, in a survey of St. Nicodemus' prolific writings in the same volume, describes him as "A man who grasped both the letter and the spirit of the canons of the Church....also a pastor par excellence."

Although some critics have criticized his writings for alleged influence from [[Roman Catholic Church|Roman Catholic]] spirituality, canon law, and theology, his life work clearly focused on reviving traditional Orthodox texts and ascetic practices, while making use of limited materials at hand amid the Turkish occupation of the Greek world, which involved sometimes adapting Catholic materials. He translated and revised "The Spiritual Combat" (1589) by Lorenzo Scupoli, a Catholic priest of Venice, renaming it "Unseen Warfare," as well as the "Spiritual Exercises" of J.P. Pinamonti (sometimes wrongly thought to have been Ignatius Loyola's original work), probably via a Greek translation by Emmanuel Rominantes. Accusations of Catholic and Pietistic influences on his work, a topic of controversy going back to divisions over the Kollyvades ascetic reform movement with which St. Nicodemus was associated in the Greek Church in his day, have been disputed. For a recent detailed discussion, see the introductory materials to "Christian Morality," a 2012 English translation of his 1803 "Chrestoethia of Christians." A current commentator in the new translation remarks on how that handbook on moral behavior reflects Orthodox ascetic tradition and Athonite "monastic propriety of his age," responding at times to "conventions upheld by the civil authorities" for a populace under a [[Muslim ]] colonial regime, rather than Catholic or Pietist influence. Likewise, although it was alleged that the saint drew on Catholic sources for his manual of confession (which became standard in Greek Orthodoxy), this is disputed in Fr. George Mellitos' introduction to the most recent English translation of the book. Archimandrite Chrysostom Maidones, Chancellor of the Metropolis of Hierissos in Greece, in a recent English translation of St Nicodemus' "Concerning Frequent Communion," suggests how past neglect by academic theology of the "Fathers of the Philokalic movement," including St. Nicodemus, contributed to a lack of proper context for the Saint's work among modern scholars.