G regory P alamas, S aint (1296–1359)

Abstract

Abstract St. Gregory Palamas can be understood as having a standing in the Greek East parallel to that of St. Thomas Aquinas in the Latin West. But this is not because his thought is so comprehensive, although it assuredly is, and certainly not due to similarity in their ideas, for the two stand in sharp opposition concerning central concepts, but because like St. Thomas a century earlier, he formulated a version of his own respective tradition so definitive that, at least with regard to essentials, it can nevertheless be called a “summa.” As it is put plainly by Metropolitan Hierotheos Vlachos, one of the most distinguished contemporary Greek theologians, “The theology of St. Gregory Palamas is the theology of the Orthodox Church.” But this is not meant to suggest the kind of official status accorded to St. Thomas in the Roman Church as “common doctor,” but rather to affirm that St. Gregory “was not introducing a new system of teaching and knowledge of God, but he lived and then expressed what he met in the Church and on the Holy Mountain, having been trained in the life in Christ” (1997: 357). St. Gregory was born into a noble Byzantine family in Constantinople. In 1316, after the death of his father, a pious Byzantine senator with strong connections to the Imperial Court, he entered the monastic life, along with most of his family. With two of his brothers, he traveled on foot to the Monastery of Vatopedi on Mt. Athos, where he stayed for three years before moving on to the Great Lavra, at the easternmost tip of the Athonite Penninsula, for another three years. Along with many other monks, he left the Holy Mountain in 1325 due to frequent Turkish raids. Still living a contemplative life, he was ordained a priest in Thessalonica in 1326, and returned to Mt. Athos in 1331 where he lived as a hermit at St. Sabbas, high above the Great Lavra, descending the steep path only for liturgical feasts at the Lavra. Beginning in 1335, St. Gregory became increasingly involved in the Hesychast Controversy, the demands of which required him to once again leave Mt. Athos, this time for good. He became the champion of the triumphant Hesychast tradition, affirmed by three Councils in Constantinople in 1341, 1345, and 1351. In 1347, he was consecrated Metropolitan Bishop of Thessalonica, where his sermons placed a special emphasis on care for the poor and needy. In 1354, while traveling by sea, he was taken prisoner by the Turks for a year, and he spent much of this time in earnest theological dialog with his Islamic captors. He was glorified as a saint in 1368, soon after his death in 1359.