*** The Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium, vol.

3, Oxford University Press, 1991

PALAMAS, GREGORY, theologian, archbishop of Thessalonike (1347-59), and saint,

canonized in 1368; born Constantinople ca.I296, died Thessalonike 14 Nov. 1359. Though
destined by his aristocratic background for imperial service, Palamas chose the monastic life
instead and went to Athos in 1316. After a brief stay at Vatopedi and then at Lavra he joined
the skete of Glossia. In 1326 Palamas was ordained a priest. He then continued the life of
prayer, which the hesychasts of Athos had taught him, in a number of hermitages.
In 1336 he entered into an exchange of letters with BARLAAM OF CALABRIA. His
objections to Barlaam's syllogistic reasoning quicklybecame a matter of controversy involving
both church and society, esp. after Barlaam attacked Palamas and the monastic spirituality of
HESYCHASM on Athos. Most of Palamas's literary production is devoted to this cause (often
referred to as PALAMISM) that the church supported and endorsed in the Constantinople
local councils of 1341, 1347, and 1351. In addition to the monks of Athos and numerous
bishops, Palamas's staunchest supporters included JOHN VI KANTAKOUZENOS and the
patriarchs ISIDORE I, KALLISTOS I, and PHILOTHEOS KOKKINOS (the last mentioned
wrote an enkomion of Palamas).
Still, during the CIVIL WAR OF 1341-47, Palamas was imprisoned by Patr. JOHN XIV
KALEKAS and his ideas condemned. This censorship, however, was primarily politically
motivated, for Palamas was a known sympathizer of Kantakouzenos. Indeed, he was initially
unable to enter the city of Thessalonike, to which he had been appointed archbishop (1347),
because anti-Kantakouzenist ZEALOTS still occupied it. Generally, the party opposed to
Palamas was confined to some bishops, the humanist Nikephoros GREGORAS, Gregory
AKINDYNOS, and the later small circle of Byz. Thomists led by the KYDONES brothers.
In addition to his two Apodeictic Treatises, the Hagiorite Tomos, and his Triads in defense of
hesychasm, Palamas wrote numerous tracts, letters, and sermons dealing with hagiography,
liturgy, asceticism, and prayer. The detailed account of his brief captivity (1354-55) among
the Turks of Asia Minor and his conversations with them and the so-called Chionai (nou
convertiti la islam dintre crestini) is striking for its impartial view of Christians living under
Turkish rule and of the Turks themselves. (pag. 1560)

PALAMISM: Its characteristic feature is the distinction between the inaccessible and
unknowable essence of God and his uncreated energies. Its goal expressed most fully in
Palamas's Triads was to give an objective theological foundation to the theory and practice
of monastic contemplation or HESYCHASM. Palamism affirms that the aim of contemplative prayer is the vision of the uncreated light of God, exemplified by the light that shone
about Christ at his Transfiguration on Mt. Tabor (Luke 9:28-36; cf. Triads 3, ed. Meyendorff,
574-83). By means of this deifying light or energy, SALVATION or deification (THEOSIS) is
realized. Because the contemplative is able to experience God's own uncreated grace
(energeia), as distinct from his essence which is unknowable, the hesychast encounters the
living God directly (Triads I: 115-4-5). Therefore, communion with God himself knowledge
of him through his authentically divine operations or energies is possible and, indeed,
accessible to human experience (Triads 3:599.22-23). Man, though a creature, was made to
participate in God.
This affirmation places Palamism squarely within the development of Byz. theology and its
quest for salvation. For both Palamism and Greek patristic theology are soteriologically
determined. This is clear from the great Christological debate of the 4th-5th Century. with its
insistence that the gulf (distanta) between God and man had been bridged by the Incarnation.
Indeed, the focus of this controversy was not theological speculation but salvation, with
man's ascent to God and communion with him made possible through the hypostatic union of
the incarnate Word. That is, Christ's assumption of the fullness of our humanity makes
deification possible. In Byz. theology (as with Palamism) real and immediate knowledge of
God in Christ is thus ultimately rooted in the Orthodox Christology of CHALCEDON Concil
(Triads 1:193-4-18). Hence the 14th Century Byzantine church approved the Palamite
distinction, despite the formal Aristotelian objections of BARLAAM OF CALABRIA that the
distinction was an innovation incompatible with the divine simplicity. Hence, too, the
Palamite rejection of the opposition of Nikephoros GREGORAS, since this also was based on
a formal "rationalism" shared in part with Barlaam.
Palamas's essentially apophatic approach to theological truth has often been viewed as
incompatible with Thomism or as an obscurantist mysticism systematically opposed to
secular learning. Palamas, however, was only insisting that knowledge of God could not be
reduced to a rational exercise alone, that is, to the dialectic reasoning of SCHOLASTICISM
with its exclusive endorsement of Aristotle. He held that only the mind transfigured or
illuminated by grace can know God. Palamas, quite simply, found unacceptable the degree of

authority assigned by scholasticism to Greek Philosophy its pretension to be adequate to

the Christian mystery" (Meyendorff, Palamas 240). (pag. 1561)
The Dispute over PaIamism
Palamism was established in the mid-14th C. as the official teaching of the Byz. church in
spite of strong opposition from men such as Barlaam of Calabria, Gregory AKINDYNOS, and
Nikephoros Gregoras.
The basic philosophical differences, both ontological and epistemological, could be expressed
in two questions frequently discussed by church fathers: how could the gap between God and
man be bridged, and how could the incomprehensible God be known by man. An excessive
simplification of the problem by some hesychasts of the early 14th C. (including influential
Athonite monks), who asserted the possibility of seeing the divine uncreated light, led to
criticism by Barlaam who identified hesychasm as MESSALIANISM, as eliminating the
distinction between the Creator and his creation. Barlaam's emphasis on the distinction
between God and man endangered the concept of deification and consequently of salvation;
Palamas had to defend the traditional view by introducing certain innovative definitions.
Akindynos, another critic of Palamism, denied the existence of a middle being (a "non created
minor [deity] or inferior noncreated [being]") and stressed the simplicity of God who admits
of no distinctions except the properties of the three PERSONS. John KYPARISSIOTES
affirmed that Palamas had introduced a fourth nature (Physis), and Barlaam treated the light
of Tabor as an image indalma. Up to this point the Palamite dispute remained within the
sphere of Greek theology; Prochoros KVDONES, however, employed in the anti-Palamite
discussion the means of Latin scholastics and tried to prove that in a perfect being ousia
should coincide with energeia.
In response to this criticism the Palamites attempted to modify some flawed formulations of
their teacher in order to circumvent the accusation that Palamism introduced higher and lower
deities and in order to stress the simplicity of God. Philotheos KOKKINOS emphasized the
patristic tradition of the concept of uncreated GRACE, in order to invalidate the identification
of Palamism as Messalianism; he states that the real Messalians are those who assumed the
possibility of a union with God without such grace, who viewed grace only as a property of
the thinking nature. GENNADIOS II SCHOLARIOS accepted this modified form of
Palamism. (pag. 1562)