ST. GREGORY PALAMAS (NOV 14TH)

 

St. Gregory of Palamas

By Bp. Joseph (Ancient Church of the West) 

Today, according to the original Julian Calendar, we commemorate the life of St. Gregory of Palamas (1296AD-1359AD), monastic teacher, hesychast, bishop, and theologian. He is primarily remembered for his dispute with Barlam the Calabrian, who taught that God could only be known through the medium of a created, intermediary “grace”, and could not be directly involved in the lives of Christians. St. Gregory taught, through his insight into the distinction between energies and essences, that while God could not be comprehended in His essence, but could be experienced directly in His energies. 

St. Gregory often used the analogy of the sun to illustrate his theological understanding of how we interact with God. He argued that, while we could not be united to the sun itself, unable to survive the direct heat of the sun’s fire in contact with its “essence”, we can receive the warmth of the sun’s rays and be given warmth, light and life through our interaction with its “energies.” This analogy laid the classic foundation for the Orthodox understanding of Theosis, and it is central to how we understand the process of sanctification to be at work in our lives through the work of the Church’s Sacraments. The Sacraments allow us to interact directly with the Life of the Holy Trinity, experiencing the power of God for supernatural life through our communion with God’s energies, becoming “gods by grace, but not in essence”, always maintaining the distinction between the Creator and His creation. In this way, St. Gregory Palamas was able to clarify the doctrine of St. Athanasius of Alexandria and St. Irenaeus of Lyon, who both taught that “God became man so that we might become gods.” 

St. Gregory Communing with Christ

Collect

ALMIGHTY GOD, Who hast made St. Gregory Palamas to be a light and pillar of Orthodoxy; help us to be as he was, illumined by the light of Thy uncreated glory, bold to resist the heresy of scholasticism, and able to return the Western Church to the fullness of Apostolic Faith through our brilliant reflection of Thy saving grace; and may St. Gregory intercede for us in Heaven, so that we may partake in Thy Divine Nature and finish the course that is set before us. Through Jesus Christ Our Lord, Who livest and reignest with Thee, in the unity of the Holy Ghost, ever One God, world without end. Amen!