Elias of Crete composed eloquent and accurate commentaries on many orations of blessed Gregory Nazianzen. In these he rather often mentions our Dionysius. Thus, in the Apologetic Oration 1, folios 59 and 75, he says that Nazianzen borrowed the word “illuminators” from the books of Dionysius, namely from On the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy, chapter 5, page 181. Afterwards Elias, folio 151, clearly alludes to the hierarchical books of Dionysius, writing as follows:
“For Saint Dionysius judges that the things which are celebrated here in the churches are likenesses and images of the things which are celebrated in the heavens; and, placing our hierarchy after the celestial hierarchy, he declares it to be a fellow minister with it, and says that it receives from there, according to God’s kindness, the fitting illuminations, using precisely these words: ‘For the sake, therefore, of this fitting deification of ours, that kindly principality of sacred rites,’ and so forth.”
All these things may be read in the said chapter 5, from page 180, and in chapter 6, from page 207, where they are set forth more fully. Likewise, in the commentary on oration 19, he praises the things which Dionysius wrote about the rite of consecrating priests, which are now extant in the said chapter 5, page 194.
Saint Andrew of Crete, martyr and Bishop of Jerusalem, praised by Glycas, in his oration On the Dormition of the Virgin Mother of God, not only followed the narrative of our Dionysius concerning the death of Mary our Lady, but also tried to imitate his style and words. Anyone who compares the Greek words of Andrew with those of Dionysius, page 281, will easily gather this.