Oxford history of the christian church

7. Palamite problems.

This same Barlaam who put the Orthodox view to the papacy at Avignon had already opened a controversy in Byzantium which had far-reaching effects and at the same time revealed the vitality of Byzantine spirituality and theology. While defending the Orthodox Church during the 1333-4 union negotiations in Constantinople Barlaam had written on the filioque controversy. He asserted that the Latins could not prove their case by means of human reasoning since God in his essence was unknowable (which cut both ways in the controversy). He also took exception to practices which he found on Mount Athos. Here hermits living in asceticism and holy stillness (hesychia) claimed that repetition of the Jesus prayer and certain psychosomatic techniques helped them to experience the divine light which had shone round Christ on Mount Tabor, that is, they could know God while in this life. Barlaam's contention that God was in essence totally unknowable and his subsequent fierce condemnation of the Athonite hesychasts were challenged by a monk Gregory Palamas who had himself lived on Mount Athos. Palamas also took exception to Barlaam's view that non-Christian philosophers of antiquity might have had some 'enlightenment by God'.

Palamas wrote nine treatises arranged in groups of three and called Triads. ¹³² In these he defended and developed θέωσιζ, the deification of man. He maintained that, though the uncreated essence of God was unknowable, both here and in the next world man could share in God through uncreated energies bestowed by deifying grace. Barlaam took the offensive. He replied to Palamas's second Triad with a Tract Against the Messalians implying that hesychast practices were heretical. He then accused Palamas to the Patriarch John Calecas. A synod was held in Constantinople on 10 June 1341 at which Barlaam found himself condemned. The hesychasts had defended themselves in a hagioretic (monastic) Tome brought from Athos by Gregory Palamas and subsequent synodal sessions that year confirmed the Palamite position but further discussion was prohibited. ¹³³ Barlaam returned to Italy, but within Byzantine circles the controversy continued.

At the same time following Andronicus III's death on 15 June 1341 civil war broke out. His heir John V was a minor and the regency of the Empress Mother Anne of Savoy and the Patriarch Calecas was successfully contested by the Grand Domestic John Cantacuzenus who was crowned as co-Emperor John VI in Constantinople in 1347. Cantacuzenus supported the Orthodox position of the Palamites and he deposed the Patriarch John XIV Calecas who had imprisoned Palamas for continuing the controversy contrary to the synodal ruling. ¹³⁴ Isidore (May 1347-February/ March 1350), a pro-Palamite and bishop-elect of Monembasia, was chosen patriarch and he soon afterwards appointed Palamas archbishop of Thessalonica. ¹³⁵ It is clear that there was a body of opinion which followed Gregory Acindynus who had originally tried to mediate between Barlaam and Palamas. Acindynus's criticism was directed not to the hesychast techniques — this was a minor matter in the controversy — but to what he regarded as Palamas's wrong use of patristic writings. He saw him as 'an innovator' and not as a theologian building on a long-established tradition. Yet another synod was held in May-July 1351 in the Blachernae palace. ¹³⁶ This is generally regarded as definitive in the Orthodox world. Palamite teaching was reaffirmed and anathemas against condemned opponents such as Barlaam and Acindynus were added to the Synodicon of Orthodoxy. Nicephorus Gregoras, who was certainly not pro-Latin, died in prison. He thought that the 'uncreated energies' implied more than one God. An Athonite monk Prochorus Cydones who took the Thomist view was excommunicated in 1368. Palamas († 1359) was canonized in this same year, ¹³⁷ and one of the most notable fourteenth-century patriarchs, Philotheus Coccinus, wrote his encomium. ¹³⁸

Perhaps 'hesychast' — a word with various meanings — is an unfortunate description ¹³⁹ of what was a development of significance both in the fourteenth century and in the continuing life of the Orthodox Church. This development in Orthodox teaching has on occasion been underrated or misunderstood by modern historians. In recent works which enjoy a high reputation it appears to be regarded as 'a purely domestic issue', ¹⁴⁰ or worse still, 'a retreat into an ivory tower of spiritual and cultural nationalism' under 'obscurantist Palamite leadership'. ¹⁴¹ This is to convey a wrong impression of what was in fact a development and reaffirmation of the spiritual experience of deification, the underlying basis of Christian life in the Orthodox Church. It is true that it came at a time of internal rivalries, patriarchal resignations and depositions, territorial contraction, and mass conversions to Islam, of gloom and pessimism in intellectual circles, all of which some scholars like to stress. Such a picture has to be balanced by an understanding of the long-term significance of fourteenth-century Byzantine spirituality (by no means confined simply to Palamite teaching). This is admirably brought out by J. Meyendorff's emphasis on the influence of Palamas and his theology on the Slav countries, particularly Russia. ¹⁴² The whole question did of course raise major issues, not only in its own day but for later generations, and the place of human reason in Christian epistemology is still being debated by western and Orthodox theologians. ¹⁴³ But unlike some secular historians the theologians are at least more constructively assessing the significance of Palamite teaching. And deification, or divinization, is found in the western as well as the eastern tradition. It is implicit in the Offertory of the Roman Catholic mass, as well as in prayers and hymns in use in the West, all of which speak of 'sharing in', or 'being transformed into', the divinity of Christ. This is the 'participation' of which St Augustine spoke, meaning, as the Orthodox would say, participation through the grace of the Holy Spirit in the divine energies but not in the unknowable essence or substantia of God. ¹⁴⁴