Saint Gregory Palamas, Archbishop of Thessalonica, was born in the year 1296 in Constantinople. St Gregory’s father became a prominent dignitary at the court of Andronicus II Paleologos (1282-1328), but he soon died, and Andronicus himself took part in the raising and education of the fatherless boy. Endowed with fine abilities and great diligence, Gregory mastered all the subjects which then comprised the full course of medieval higher education. The emperor hoped that the youth would devote himself to government work. But Gregory, barely twenty years old, withdrew to Mount Athos in the year 1316 (other sources say 1318) and became a novice in the Vatopedi monastery under the guidance of the monastic Elder St Nicodemus of Vatopedi (July 11). There he was tonsured and began on the path of asceticism. A year later, the holy Evangelist John the Theologian appeared to him in a vision and promised him his spiritual protection. Gregory’s mother and sisters also became monastics.
After the demise of the Elder Nicodemus, St Gregory
spent eight years of spiritual struggle under the guidance of the Elder
Nicephorus, and after the latter’s death, Gregory transferred to the
Lavra of St Athanasius (July 5). Here he served in the trapeza, and then
became a church singer. But after three years, he resettled in the
small skete of Glossia, striving for a greater degree of spiritual
perfection. The head of this monastery began to teach the young man the
method of unceasing prayer and mental activity, which had been
cultivated by monastics, beginning with the great desert ascetics of the
fourth century: Evagrius Pontikos and St Macarius of Egypt (January
19).
Later on, in the eleventh century St Simeon the New
Theologian (March 12) provided detailed instruction in mental activity
for those praying in an outward manner, and the ascetics of Athos put it
into practice. The experienced use of mental prayer (or prayer of the
heart), requiring solitude and quiet, is called “Hesychasm” (from the
Greek “hesychia” meaning calm, silence), and those practicing it were
called “hesychasts.”
During his stay at Glossia the future
hierarch Gregory became fully imbued with the spirit of hesychasm and
adopted it as an essential part of his life. In the year 1326, because
of the threat of Turkish invasions, he and the brethren retreated to
Thessalonica, where he was then ordained to the holy priesthood.
St
Gregory combined his priestly duties with the life of a hermit. Five
days of the week he spent in silence and prayer, and only on Saturday
and Sunday did he come out to his people. He celebrated divine services
and preached sermons. For those present in church, his teaching often
evoked both tenderness and tears. Sometimes he visited theological
gatherings of the city’s educated youth, headed by the future patriarch,
Isidore. After he returned from a visit to Constantinople, he found a
place suitable for solitary life near Thessalonica the region of Bereia.
Soon he gathered here a small community of solitary monks and guided it
for five years.
In 1331 the saint withdrew to Mt Athos and
lived in solitude at the skete of St Sava, near the Lavra of St
Athanasius. In 1333 he was appointed Igumen of the Esphigmenou monastery
in the northern part of the Holy Mountain. In 1336 the saint returned
to the skete of St Sava, where he devoted himself to theological works,
continuing with this until the end of his life.
In the
1330s events took place in the life of the Eastern Church which put St
Gregory among the most significant universal apologists of Orthodoxy,
and brought him great renown as a teacher of hesychasm.
About the
year 1330 the learned monk Barlaam had arrived in Constantinople from
Calabria, in Italy. He was the author of treatises on logic and
astronomy, a skilled and sharp-witted orator, and he received a
university chair in the capital city and began to expound on the works
of St Dionysius the Areopagite (October 3), whose “apophatic”
(“negative”, in contrast to “kataphatic” or “positive”) theology was
acclaimed in equal measure in both the Eastern and the Western Churches.
Soon Barlaam journeyed to Mt Athos, where he became acquainted with the
spiritual life of the hesychasts’. Saying that it was impossible to
know the essence of God, he declared mental prayer a heretical error.
Journeying from Mount Athos to Thessalonica, and from there to
Constantinople, and later again to Thessalonica, Barlaam entered into
disputes with the monks and attempted to demonstrate the created,
material nature of the light of Tabor (i.e. at the Transfiguration). He
ridiculed the teachings of the monks about the methods of prayer and
about the uncreated light seen by the hesychasts.
St Gregory, at
the request of the Athonite monks, replied with verbal admonitions at
first. But seeing the futility of such efforts, he put his theological
arguments in writing. Thus appeared the “Triads in Defense of the Holy
Hesychasts” (1338). Towards the year 1340 the Athonite ascetics, with
the assistance of the saint, compiled a general response to the attacks
of Barlaam, the so-called “Hagiorite Tome.” At the Constantinople
Council of 1341 in the church of Hagia Sophia St Gregory Palamas debated
with Barlaam, focusing upon the nature of the light of Mount Tabor. On
May 27, 1341 the Council accepted the position of St Gregory Palamas,
that God, unapproachable in His Essence, reveals Himself through His
energies, which are directed towards the world and are able to be
perceived, like the light of Tabor, but which are neither material nor
created. The teachings of Barlaam were condemned as heresy, and he
himself was anathemized and fled to Calabria.
But the dispute
between the Palamites and the Barlaamites was far from over. To these
latter belonged Barlaam’s disciple, the Bulgarian monk Akyndinos, and
also Patriarch John XIV Kalekos (1341-1347); the emperor Andronicus III
Paleologos (1328-1341) was also inclined toward their opinion.
Akyndinos, whose name means “one who inflicts no harm,” actually caused
great harm by his heretical teaching. Akyndinos wrote a series of tracts
in which he declared St Gregory and the Athonite monks guilty of
causing church disorders. The saint, in turn, wrote a detailed
refutation of Akyndinos’ errors. The patriarch supported Akyndinos and
called St Gregory the cause of all disorders and disturbances in the
Church (1344) and had him locked up in prison for four years. In 1347,
when John the XIV was replaced on the patriarchal throne by Isidore
(1347-1349), St Gregory Palamas was set free and was made Archbishop of
Thessalonica.
In 1351 the Council of Blachernae solemnly upheld
the Orthodoxy of his teachings. But the people of Thessalonica did not
immediately accept St Gregory, and he was compelled to live in various
places. On one of his travels to Constantinople the Byzantine ship fell
into the hands of the Turks. Even in captivity, St Gregory preached to
Christian prisoners and even to his Moslem captors. The Hagarenes were
astonished by the wisdom of his words. Some of the Moslems were unable
to endure this, so they beat him and would have killed him if they had
not expected to obtain a large ransom for him. A year later, St Gregory
was ransomed and returned to Thessalonica.
St Gregory performed
many miracles in the three years before his death, healing those
afflicted with illness. On the eve of his repose, St John Chrysostom
appeared to him in a vision. With the words “To the heights! To the
heights!” St Gregory Palamas fell asleep in the Lord on November 14,
1359. In 1368 he was canonized at a Constantinople Council under
Patriarch Philotheus (1354-1355, 1364-1376), who compiled the Life and
Services to the saint.
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