The Sunday of Saint Gregory Palamas
from Orthodox Christian Parenting
on the website of Antiochian Christian Orthodox Archdiocese
On this second Sunday of Great Lent, we commemorate Saint Gregory of Palamas’ successful defense of the Orthodox
belief that humans can both know and experience God He asserted that we
can know with our minds that God exists, and we can also experience him through his uncreated energies.
This flew in the face of the teachings of Barlaam, a critic of Saint Gregory’s and of hesychasm in general.
Saint Gregory was born in 1296 to a prominent family in Constantinople. His father
died when Gregory was still young. The youth was so bright and hardworking
that the emperor himself took interest in Gregory, helping to raise and educate him in the hopes that he would one day hold
a high government position.
But Gregory left all the glamor of Constantinople’s
elite behind when he departed for Mount Athos at age 20 to become a monk. (And
he was not the only member of his family to do this. Shortly thereafter,
his mother and sisters also became monastics.) As a monk on Mount Athos,
Gregory learned about “Hesychasm,” a very calm, still way to pray.
He mastered this prayer of the heart, and thus we know him as a “hesychast.”
In 1326, Gregory went to Thessalonica and was ordained to the priesthood.
He lived the life of a hermit on weekdays, silent praying alone and away from the world.
On the weekends, he would celebrate the holy services in his parish and he would preach so beautiful that his sermons
brought his listeners to tears.
When Barlaam, a bright and studious monk,
came to Mount Athos, and heard about hesychasm, he proclaimed it to be a heresy. He insisted that it is not possible for humans
to know God’s essence or to experience his energies such as uncreated light.
His dissent caused quite a stir, and Gregory was called to debate with Barlaam about this.
Gregory‘s studies in the world and his experience as a hesychast put him in the perfect position for this debate.
Gregory first tried to speak to Barlaam about all of this, but speaking did not
seem to make any progress, so he began to write prolifically about the prayer of the heart and its validity.
Although Gregory was writing a lot, they continued to meet and debate in person as well.
One of these debates was before the 1341 Council of Constantinople, which took place in Hagai Sophia.
This time, they were arguing about the Transfiguration. Gregory stood
by the Orthodox belief that God revealed himself to the disciples on Mount Tabot buy using his Divine Energies.
Barlaam said this was not an actual experience of God: just a helpful gift to the disciples, who couldn’t really
experience God because they are humans.
The members of the Council upheld Gregory’s
position as the truly Orthodox position. They argued that God, whose Essence
we cannot approach, chooses to reveal himself through his energies. Humans
can see those Energies such the light that the disciples could see on Mount
Tabor, After the Council ruled that Barlaam’s teachings were heresy,
Barlaam fled to Calabria.
In spite of the ruling, some people still
argued against Gregory, even locking him up in prison for 4 years at one
point. However, the very next patriarch released him and made him Archbishop
of Thessalonica. In his later years, God gave Gregory
the gift to perform miracles, including healing the sick, and he was granted a vision of Saint John Chrysostom on the
night before he died His last words were, “To the heights!
To the heights!”
Thanks to Saint Gregory Palamas, the Church
has maintained the truth that we humans are able to experience God through his uncreated energies.
Saint Gregory’s life of dedication to God and his Church as well as his
willingness to stand for truth set him apart as a wonderful example to all of us.
Sometimes people refer to the Sunday of Saint Gregory of Palamas as “The Sunday of Orthodoxy Part Two,”
since his defense saved the Orthodox Church when it was under a second major attack.
The Gospel reading for this second Sunday of Lent is the story of the paralytic whose four friends lowered him through
the roof of the place where Christ was so that the could be healed by him. Our
Lord not only healed his legs, making him able to walk again, but also healed his sins, telling him, “Your sins are
forgiven you.” How beautiful it is for us to be reminded, right near
the beginning of Great Lent, that the truth of our Faith is worth standing up
for, as did Saint Gregory; at the same time receiving the reassurance that Christ is waiting for us to come to him so that
he can heal both our soul and our body.
Here are a few quotes for Saint Gregory
of Palamas for you to ponder throughout the week:
“Let not one
think, my fellow Christians, that only priests and monks need to pray without ceasing and not laymen. No, no; every Christian
without exception ought to dwell always in prayer.”
“For our love
for God is demonstrated above all by the way we endure trials and temptations.”
“It is pointless for someone to say that he has faith in God if he does not have the works which go with faith. What benefit were their lamps to the foolish virgins who had no oil? [Mt 25.1-13],
namely, deeds of love and compassion?”
“If from one
burning lamp someone lights another, then another from that one, and so on in succession, he has light continuously. In the same way, through the Apostles ordaining their successors, and these successors
ordaining others, and so on, the grace of the Holy Spirit is handed down through all generations and enlightens all who obey
their shepherds and teachers.”
“Adam chose the treason of the serpent,
the originator of evil, in preference to God’s commandment and counsel, and broke the decreed fast.
Instead of eternal life he received death and instead of the place of unsullied joy he received this sinful place full
of passions and misfortunes, or rather, he was sentenced to Hades and nether darkness.
Our nature would have stayed in the infernal regions below the lurking places of the serpent who initially beguiled
it, had not Christ come. He started off by fasting [cf Mk 1.13] and in the
end abolished the serpent’s tyranny, set us free and brought us back to life…”
