St. Gregory Palamas and our times

1. Entity type Lemma
2. Original titleὉ ἅγιος Γρηγόριος ὁ Παλαμᾶς καὶ ἡ ἐποχή μας
3. Language term Greek, Modern (1453-)
4. lemma author Koutalis, Vangelis
5. lemma category Ethics - Orthodox Anthropology - Ecology and the environment - Concepts of knowledge and modes of reasoning > Mysticism and Orthodox spiritual experience - Complementarity
6. Publication date 26-02-2017
7. lemma work Mantzaridis, Georgios [Author]. St. Gregory Palamas and our times
8. lemma manifestations Ενατενίσεις - Πεμπτουσία
9. Keywords religion and ecology - Orthodox doctrine of the Uncreated and the Created (Άκτιστο-Κτιστό) - Palamas, Gregory - Personalism - ecological crisis
10. Url Ενατενίσεις, τεύχος 10 - Πεμπτουσία
11. Citations
    1. <p>Mantzaridis, G. [Μαντζαρίδης, Γ.] (2010). Ὁ ἅγιος Γρηγόριος ὁ Παλαμᾶς καὶ ἡ ἐποχή μας. <em>Ενατενίσεις</em>, <em>10</em>, 30-33.</p>
    2. <p>Mantzaridis, G. [Μαντζαρίδης, Γ.] (2013, March 31). <em>Ὁ ἅγιος Γρηγόριος ὁ Παλαμᾶς καὶ ἡ ἐποχή μας</em>. Retrieved from https://www.pemptousia.gr/2013/03/o-agios-grigorios-palamas-ke-i-epochi-m/.</p>
12. Lemma body

    1. Starting by shortly presenting the pivotal thesis of Gregory Palamas’ theology, that is, the distinction between the essence and the energy or energies of God, the author underscores its implications as for the conception of the relation of human beings to God. In Gregory Palamas’ elaboration of insights into this central question that had been already elucidated in the Patristic theology, God is not inaccessible to humans. Neither does God communicate with humans through the mediation of created means. God, by grace, can effect communion between the Uncreated and the Created and thus humans can participate immediately and personally in divine life. With the energy of God, which is the approachable and participatable, living God, we can experience God in history and in our life. To conceive God as living amounts to regressing from the essence to reality (ὂν). Yet, this regression does not imply a primacy of reality, because otherwise the cost of avoiding essentialism would be a Personalism devoid of essence.

       From such an angle, the participation in divine nature, the likeness (καθ’ ὁμοίωσιν) to God, is something that we have to strive for; not something that we possess from the outset. Human beings must restore their natural relation to God, not by subjugating their nature or by emancipating themselves from it, but by resisting its diversion from the purpose for which it was created. The actuality of Gregory Palamas’ anthropology, which was based on the lived tradition of the Church, rests in this insistence on the necessary struggle to overcome the existing alienation of human beings from the virtuous life in accordance with nature. The current ecological crisis must be seen as a crisis that stems from the failure of humanity to embrace the entirety of nature with love and reflects the inner pollution of the human mind and of the human heart.