Biography

Gregory Palamas was born in Constantinople in the family of the senator Constantine Palamas. He received classical education for the purpose of a public career. Among his teachers, one mentions Theodore Metochites by whom Palamas, among other things, gained knowledge of Aristotle’s doctrines. In 1314, however, he chose the monastic life and went to Athos. For 2 years, he was under the spiritual guidance of the hesychast Nikodemos. After his death (1316), Palamas became a monk in the Great Laura. During the Turkish invasion in Athos, he went in 1322 to Thessalonici, where he was ordained to priesthood. In 1326, he became a hermit near Veroia. In 1331, he was again in Athos as a hermit at St. Sabbas. In 1333/34, he was an abbot of the Esphigmenu monastery. His first writings date from this time. In the second half of the 30s, within the course of the disputation with Barlaam, he began to expose his teaching in written form as a polemic defense of hesychasm and systematization of the hesychastic views. The first part of the debate (1335-1337) concerned the possibility of constructing apodeictic syllogisms about divinity and the way of applying Aristotle’s doctrine and apophatic theology; thus knowing God and the limits of knowledge were put into question. Meanwhile, Barlaam attacked the practice of the hesychasts. Central was the question as to whether the

Tabor light, the vision of which the hesychasts experienced, is created or not. This phase of the hesychast controversy ended in 1341 through the official acceptance of the Palamite teaching and the condemnation of Barlaam. The second phase, which was marked by the controversy with Gregory Akindynos, developed during the period of the Civil War in the Byzantine Empire (1341-1347) and was strongly politically colored as Palamas and his followers supported Kantakouzenos’ party. Palamas was temporarily put in prison, and a synod called by the patriarch John XIV Kalekas excommunicated him on November 4, 1444. After Kantakouzenos ascended the throne (1347), Palamas was ordained bishop of Thessaloniki. At that time began the attacks of Nikephoros Gregoras against Palamas. The synod of 1351 anathematized Barlaam and Akindynos, reprehended Gregoras and his followers severely and proclaimed Palamas’ doctrine a dogma. This state of affairs did not change even after the dethronement of Kantakouzenos (1354). The last years of his life was devoted to his duties as a bishop. He died on November 4,1357. The council of 1368 declared him a saint. Palamas is considered as the last teacher of Orthodoxy hitherto, and his teaching is accepted as the official doctrine of the contemporary Orthodox Churches.

Among the writings of Palamas, one should mention the two published 1335-1336 treatises about the procession of the Holy Spirit as well as the Anepigraphae, directed against Beck. As his main writing one considers the Triads, produced between 1338 and 1340, which contains a polemic defense of the hesychastic way of life. Worth mentioning is the dialogue Theophanes which appeared in 1343. An important source is the detailed Antirrhetika against Gregory Akindynos and Nikephoros Gregoras. The mature works of Palamas are the 150 Psychical, Theological and Ethical Chapters that elucidate in systematic form the Palamite mode of thinking. Palamas is also the author of a large number of small treatises, letters, and 63 homilies.