Palamism

Semi-Autonomous: Palamism or the Palamite theology comprises the teachings of Gregory Palamas (c. 1296 – 1359), whose writings defended the Eastern Orthodox practice of Hesychasm against the attack of Barlaam.

[9] An exercise long used among Christians for acquiring contemplation, one "available to everyone, whether he be of the clergy or of any secular occupation",[10] involves focusing the mind by constant repetition of a phrase or word.

[7] The terms Hesychasm and Hesychast were used by the monks on Mount Athos to refer to the practice and to the practitioner of a method of mental ascesis that involves the use of the Jesus Prayer assisted by certain psychophysical techniques.

He had shown that, in the hands of monks who were inadequately instructed and ignorant of the true Hesychast teaching, the psycho-physical precepts of Hesychasm could produce "dangerous and ridiculous results".

Although several significant exceptions leave the issue open to question, in the popular mind (and traditional historiography), the supporters of "Palamism" and of "Kantakouzenism" are usually equated.

[19] Although Barlaam initially hoped for a second chance to present his case against Palamas, he soon realised the futility of pursuing his cause, and left for Calabria where he converted to the Roman Catholic Church and was appointed Bishop of Gerace.

[41] After the triumph of the Palæologi, the Barlaamite faction convened an anti-Hesychast synod at Ephesus but, by this time, the patriarchs of Constantinople and the overwhelming majority of the clergy and laity had come to view the cause of Hesychasm as one and the same with that of Orthodoxy.

Throughout the second half of the fourteenth century, there are numerous reports of Christians returning from the "Barlaamite heresy" to Palamite orthodoxy, suggesting that the process of imposing universal acceptance of Palamism spanned several decades.

[42] Despite the initial opposition of the anti-Palamites and some patriarchates and sees, the resistance dwindled away over time and ultimately Palamist doctrine became accepted throughout the Eastern Orthodox Church.

[37] For theologians who remained in opposition, there was ultimately no choice but to emigrate and convert to the Latin church, a path taken by Kalekas as well as Demetrios Kydones and Ioannes Kypariossiotes.

[citation needed] Historically, Western Christianity has tended to reject the essence–energies distinction, characterizing it as a heretical introduction of an unacceptable division in the Trinity and suggestive of polytheism.

[57] It is a gift from the Holy Spirit to those who, through observance of the commandments of God and ascetic practices (see praxis, kenosis, Poustinia and schema), have achieved dispassion.

[61] Following Christ's instruction to "go into your room or closet and shut the door and pray to your father who is in secret" (Matthew 6:6), the hesychast withdraws into solitude in order that he or she may enter into a deeper state of contemplative stillness.

Palamas stated that this is not a mechanized process because each person is unique, but that the apodictic way that one experiences the uncreated light, or God, is through contemplative prayer called hesychasm.

Based on Christ's injunction in the Gospel of Matthew to "go into your closet to pray",[64] hesychasm in tradition has been the process of retiring inward by ceasing to register the senses, in order to achieve an experiential knowledge of God (see theoria).

[67] In 1966, Nicholas Wiseman characterized Gregory Palamas as "the only major Orthodox spokesman since the schism with Rome" and asserted that a positive reassessment of his theology "would surely benefit the cause of unity.

"[68] While the Eastern Church went through a tempestuous period in which the controversy was heatedly debated resulting ultimately in a series of councils alternately approving and condemning doctrine concerning hesychasm, the Western Church paid scant attention to the controversy in the East and made no pronouncement about it, although Western theologians generally rejected the Palamite doctrine until the 20th century, when they began to "rediscover the riches of the Orthodox tradition".

It was thus inevitable that the noise of the quarrel which was dividing the Byzantine Church into two rival factions would reach the ears of Westerners and, in particular, that the pope's legates would, one day or another, have to deal with it.

The pontifical legate, Paul of Smyrna, in the year 1355 attending, in company with John V Palaiologos, the public debate between Nikephoros Gregoras and Gregory Palamas.

What impression Paul took away from this theological jousting match we can gather from a letter which he wrote to the pope and cardinals to give them an account of the discussions he had had with the ex-emperor John Kantakouzenos around 1366-1367.

In this letter, published by Arcudius in Greek and Latin in his work Opusclua aurea theologica circa processionem Spiritus Sancti (Rome, 1630) and reproduced in PG 154, 835-838, he notess that, having been sent by Urban V to the court of John V Palaiologos, he had attempted to form an opinion on Palamism, and had not succeeded in attaining a clear view upon it: "When I was attempting to learn the truth about this doctrine (he says), while living at Constantinople, when I had been sent to the emperor Palaiologos by the aforementioned supreme pontiff, I sought to know what it is, but was unable either by word or action to comprehend anything certain regarding this opinion and impious doctrine.

From Palamas's time until the 20th century, Western theologians generally rejected the contention that, in the case of God, the distinction between essence and energies is real rather than notional (in the mind).

[7] According to Adrian Fortescue, the scholastic theory that God is pure actuality prevented Palamism from having much influence in the West, and it was from Western scholasticism that hesychasm's philosophical opponents in the East borrowed their weapons.

[73] The Enchiridion Symbolorum et Definitionum (Handbook of Creeds and Definitions), the collection of Roman Catholic teachings originally compiled by Heinrich Joseph Dominicus Denzinger, has no mention of the words "energies", "hesychasm" or "Palamas".

In the Catholic Encyclopedia of 1909, Simon Vailhé accused Palamas's teachings that humans could achieve a corporal perception of the Divinity and his distinction between God's essence and his energies as "monstrous errors" and "perilous theological theories".

It was of course Vladimir Lossky, in his Essai sur la théologie mystique de l'Eglise d'Orient (Paris, 1944; English translation, London, 1957), who first brought Palamism to the attention of a wider public, non-Orthodox as well as Orthodox.

Accepted by the Orthodox world (with the exception of Romanides), this thesis justifies the Palamite character of contemporary research devoted to ontotheological criticism (Yannaras), to the metaphysics of the person (Clement), and to phenomenology of ecclesiality (Zizioulas) or of the Holy Spirit (Bobrinskoy).

[89] The last half of the twentieth century saw a remarkable change in the attitude of Roman Catholic theologians to Palamas, a "rehabilitation" of him that has led to increasing parts of the Western Church considering him a saint, even if formally uncanonized.

Patrick Carey asserts that, before Meyendorff's 1959 doctoral dissertation on Palamas, Palamism was considered by Western theologians to be a "curious and sui generis example of medieval Byzantium's intellectual decline".

Andreas Andreopoulos cites the 1910 Catholic Encyclopedia article by Fortescue as an example of how Barlaam's distrustful and hostile attitude regarding hesychasm survived until recently in the West, adding that now "the Western world has started to rediscover what amounts to a lost tradition.