OUR HOLY FATHER AMONG THE SAINTS AND GREAT HESYCHAST, SAINT GREGORY PALAMAS (Part III)

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

CHRIST IS WITH US, HE WAS, IS, AND EVER SHALL BE.

Our Holy Father Among the Saints and Great Hesychast,
Saint Gregory Palamas (Part III).

In 1335 A.D. Saint Gregory wrote several ascetic treatises and he was also appointed Egoumenos (Abbot) of the Monastery of Esphigmenou. But the two hundred monks who lived there understood neither his zeal nor his spiritual expectations so, after a year, he returned to hermitage.

At that time, Barlaam, a monk from Calabria, won a great name for himself as a speculative thinker in Constantinople. He was particularly fond of expounding the mystical writings of Saint Dionysius the Areopagite, which he interpreted in an entirely philosophical way, making knowledge of God the object of cold reason and not of experience. When this refined humanist learned of the methods or prayer of some simple monks of his acquaintance, who allowed a place to the sensory element in spiritual life, he was scandalized. He took the occasion to calumniate them and to accuse them of heresy.. The hesychast monks appealed to Gregory who then wrote several polemical treatises in which he answered the accusations of Barlaam by locating monastic spirituality in a dogmatic synthesis.

He showed that ASCESIS and PRAYER are the OUTCOME OF THE WHOLE MYSTERY OF REDEMPTION, and are the way for each person to make the grace given at Baptism blossom within himself. He also defended the authenticity of the methods which hesychasts used to fix the intellect in the heart; for since the Incarnation we have TO SEEK THE GRACE OF THE HOLY SPIRIT IN OUR BODIES, WHICH ARE SANCTIFIED BY THE SACRAMENTS AND GRAFTED BY THE DIVINE EUCHARIST INTO THE BODY OF CHRIST. This UNCREATED GRACE is the very glory of God which, as it sprang forth from the body of Christ on the day of the Holy Transfiguration, overwhelmed the Disciples (Matthew 17). Shining now in the heart purified from the passions, it TRULY UNITES US TO GOD, ILLUMINES US, DEIFIES (THEOSIS) US 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 THEOSIS (DEIFICATION). Saint Gregory was far from denying the absolute transcendence and unknowablessness of God His essence. Following the ancient Holy Fathers, but in a more precise manner, he made A DISTINCTION BETWEEN GOD’S IMPATICIPABLE ESSENCE AND THE ETERNAL CREATIVE AND PROVIDENTIAL ENERGIES BY WHICH 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 eh Church of Saint Sophia in 1341 A.D.

Hymns of the Feast

Apolytikion (Dismissal) Hymn. Plagal of Fourth Tone

O Gregory the Miracle Worker, light of
Orthodoxy, support and teacher of the
Church, comeliness of Monastics,
invincible defender of theologians, the
pride of Thessaloniki, and preacher of
grace, intercede forever that our souls
may be saved.

Kontakion Hymn. Plagal of Fourth Tone

With one accord, we praise you as the
sacred and divine vessel of wisdom and
clear trumpet of theology, O our righteous
Father Gregory of divine speech. As a
mind that stands now before the Primal Mind,
do you ever guide aright and lead our mind
to Him, that we all may cry: Rejoice, O
herald of grace divine.

[ References: John Meyendorff.  A Study of