SAINT GREGORY PALAMAS, ARCHBISHOP OF THESSALONIKI, THE WONDERWORKER Part II

My beloved brothers and sisters in Christ Our Only True Lord, God and Savior,

CHRIST IS IN OUR MIDST! HE WAS, IS, AND EVER SHALL BE.

SAINT GREGORY PALAMAS, ARCHBISHOP OF THESSALONIKI,
THE WONDERWORKER [Part II].

Shining now in the heart purified from the passions, it truly unites us to God, illumines us, deifies (theosis) and gives us a pledge of that same glory which will shine on the bodies of the Saints after the General Resurrection. In thus affirming the full reality of deification (theosis), Saint Gregory was far from denying the absolute transcendence and unknowability of God in His essence…The Lord enables created beings to participate in His being. His life and His Light without, however, introducing any division into the unity of the Divine Nature. God is not a philosophical concept for Saint Gregory. He is Agape (Love). He is Living Person and consuming fire, as Holy Scripture teaches [Deuteronomy 4:24]. Who does everything to make us godlike.

Saint Gregory’s brilliant answer to Barlaam was first accepted by the authorities of Mount Athos in the Hagiorite Tome and then adopted by the Church, which condemned Barlaam (and with him the philosophical humanism that would soon inspire the European Renaissance), during the course of two Councils at the Church of Agia Sophia in 1341. Barlaam’s condemnation and his departure for Italy did not bring the controversy to an end. No sooner had Saint Gregory returned to his Athonite Hermitage from Thessaloniki where he had been writing his treatises in seclusion than Akindynos, an old friend of his, restated the substance of Barlaam’s arguments and condemned Saint Gregory’s DISTINCTION BETWEEN GOD’S ESSENCE AND ENERGIES AS AN INNOVATION. Patriarch John Calecas encouraged Akindynos to bring a charge of heresy against Saint Gregory, which led to the excommunication and imprisonment of the Saint.

The controversy was not finally resolved until 1351, as a Third Council which condemned the humanist Nicephorus Gregoras. In the Synodal Tome the Doctrine of Saint Gregory Palamas on the UNCREATED ENERGIES AND ON THE NATURE OF GRACE WAS RECOGNIZED AS THE RULE OF FAITH OF THE ORTHODOX CHURCH.

Among Isidore’s new episcopal appointments, Saint Gregory Palamas was named Archbishop of Thessaloniki in 1347, but unable to take possession of his See as the city was in the hands of Zealots, the party opposed to Cantacuzenus. Saint Gregory was eventually able to enter the city acclaimed as if Christ Himself were coming in triumph, with the chanting of Paschal hymns.

The Veneration of Saint Gregory Palamas was approved by the Church in 1368. The Saint works many miracles even to the present day and, after Saint Demetrios, is regarded as the Protector of Thessaloniki.

Hymns of the Feast

Apolytikion [Plagal of Fourth Tone