Saint Gregory Palamas: Father of the 9th Ecumenical Council

1. Entity type Lemma
2. Original titleὉ Ἅγιος Γρηγόριος Παλαμᾶς Πατέρας τῆς Θ΄ Οἰκουμενικῆς Συνόδου
3. Language term English
4. lemma author Koutalis, Vangelis
5. lemma category Ecumenism and dialogue > Ecumenism - Orthodox critique of science - Ecumenism and dialogue > Westernism and anti-westernism - Concepts of knowledge and modes of reasoning > Orthodox gnosiology - Orthodox theological tradition and practice > Cult and spirituality - Orthodox Anthropology - Key thinkers - Co-existence - Concepts of knowledge and modes of reasoning > Mysticism and Orthodox spiritual experience
6. Publication date 31-10-2017
7. lemma work Metallinos, (Protopresbyter) Georgios [Author]. Saint Gregory Palamas: Father of the 9th Ecumenical Council
8. lemma manifestations Ὁ Ἅγιος Γρηγόριος Παλαμᾶς Πατέρας τῆς Θ΄ Οἰκουμενικῆς Συνόδου - Holy Meteora: Holy Monastery of the Great Meteoron, 2009.
9. Keywords St. Gregory Palamas - Hesychasm - Kollyvades movement - Barlaam - Gregorios Akindynos - essence-energies distinction - Revelation
10. Citations
    1. <p>Metallinos, (Protopresbyter) G. [Μεταλληνός, (Πρωτοπρεσβύτερος) Γ.] (2009). <em>Ὁ Ἅγιος Γρηγόριος Παλαμᾶς Πατέρας τῆς Θ΄ Οἰκουμενικῆς Συνόδου</em>. Holy Meteora: Holy Monastery of the Great Meteoron.</p>
11. Lemma body

    1. In this short book on the life and work of Gregory Palamas, Protopresbyter Georgios Metallinos focuses both on the significance of Gregory’s theology and on his role with regard to the historical relation between two clearly distinct, according to the author, ecclesiastical and theological traditions, that of the Western Christianity and that of the Eastern Christianity.

       Gregory Palamas was a theologian of ascesis and repentance; not a theologian of academical titles and qualifications. He picked up the baton from the Apostles, the Apostolic Fathers, St. Maximus the Confessor, Photios the Great, and passed it on the Kollyvades Fathers, the hesychasts of the 18th century. This genealogical line corresponds to a theological tradition which stands in sharp contrast to the alienated and distorted Christianity developed in the West.

       The 8th Ecumenical Council of 849 and the 9th Ecumenical Council, or the Concils of 1341, 1347, and 1351, culminating in the Council of 1368, denounced Western theological distortions that had serious implications to the life of the Church. More specifically, in what the author accepts as the 9th Ecumenical Council, hesychasm as practical spirituality prevailed against the doctrines introduced by Barlaam and Gregorios Akindynos which were symptomatic of Western scholasticism and alienation. The essence of the theology propounded by Gregory Palamas is the distinction between the divine essence and the divine energies, without which the question of deification cannot be properly articulated and answered. The West, depicting God as a solar disk the rays of which do not reach down to earth, has been led from deismus, the idea of a God who is the creator, but not the governor of the world, to the “death of God”.

       Gregory Palamas, directing his attention to the uncreated light of God, prioritized revelation over understanding, faith over reason, tradition over erudition. As the author characteristically notes, by studying physics or astrophysics one may become educated in worldly terms, but this is not the true road to salvation. God does not communicate with human beings through texts. God communicates by entering through His uncreated light into the heart of those human beings who manage to become really receptive to the divine grace.