GREGORY PALAMAS

GREGORY PALAMAS, Archbishop of Thessalonica, theologian, monk, ascetic, St. (ca. 1296–1359). Palamas was born of Byzantine nobility and raised in the circle of the imperial court. In early life he broke off his schooling on completion of secondary education and embraced the life of monasticism on Mt. Athos, practicing the discipline of prayer brought there by Gregory of Sinai (qq.v.). His later fame arrived with his championship of the hesychasts (q.v.) and, with them, of the tradition of Eastern Christian asceticism against the charges of Barlaam of Calabria (q.v.). Gregory’s greatest work, The Triads in Defense of the Holy Hesychasts, assembled the scriptural and patristic evidence for theosis (qq.v.), arguing that the claims to a direct experience of God (q.v.) by saints past and present were evidence of a distinction in God between the divine essence and activities, or energies. The Triads-following on the Hagioritic Tome Gregory had authored (1340/41) and the monks had signed-opened up an intense debate in the Orthodox Church that lasted for over a decade, and culminated in Gregory’s official vindication at the local councils held at Constantinople (q.v.) in 1341, 1347, and 1351. The essence/energies distinction has subsequently been accepted as the official teaching of the Orthodox Church.

During his lifetime Gregory was convicted of heresy (q.v.) and excommunicated, and also captured and imprisoned by the Turks, but remained steadfast in his faith. Elected Archbishop of Thessalonica (q.v.) in 1347, he died in office. Some ten years after his death, ca. 1369, his lifelong disciple and admirer, the Patriarch Philotheos of Constantinople, saw to his canonization. He is commemorated in the Orthodox Church on the second Sunday of Great Lent (q.v.).