The Second Sunday Of Lent: The Sunday Of Saint Gregory Palamas

Introduction

On the Second Sunday of Lent the Orthodox Church commemorates our Holy Father Gregory Palamas, Archbishop of Thessalonica, the Wonderworker. The feast day of Saint Gregory Palamas is November 14, however, he is commemorated on this Sunday as the condemnation of his enemies and the vindication of his teachings by the Church in the 14th century was acclaimed as a second triumph of Orthodoxy.

Life Of The Saint

Icon of Saint Gregory Palamas provided by Theologic and used with permission.

Our holy Father Gregory was born in Constantinople in 1296 of aristocratic parents who had emigrated from Asia Minor in the face of the Turkish invasion, and were attached to the court of the pious Emperor Andronicus II Palaeologus (1282-1328). Despite his official duties, Gregory's father led a life of fervent prayer. Sometimes as he sat in the Senate, he would be so deep in prayer as to be unaware of the Emperor addressing him. While Gregory was still young, his father died after being clothed in the monastic habit; and his mother for her part wanted to take the veil, but delayed doing so in order to take care of the education of her seven children. Gregory, the eldest, was instructed by the most highly reputed masters of secular learning and, after some years, was so proficient in philosophical reasoning that, on listening to him, his master could believe he was hearing Aristotle himself. Notwithstanding these intellectual successes, the young man's real interest lay only with the things of God. He associated with monks of renown in the city and found a spiritual father in Theoleptus of Philadelphia, who instructed him in the way of holy sobriety and of prayer of the heart.

About the year 1316, Gregory decided to abandon the vanities of the world. His mother, two sisters, two brothers and a great many of his servants entered upon the monastic life with him. He and his two brothers went on foot to the holy Mountain of Athos, where they settled near the Monastery of Vatopedi under the direction of the Elder Nicodemus, who came from Mount Auxentius. Gregory made rapid progress in the holy activity of prayer, for he had put into practice since childhood the fundamental virtues of obedience, humility, meekness, fasting, vigil and the different kinds of renunciation that make the body subject to the spirit. Night and day he besought God ceaselessly with tears saying, "Lighten my darkness!" After some time, the Mother of God, in whom he had put his trust since his youth, sent Saint John the Theologian to him with the promise of her protection in this life and in the next.

After only three years, the early death of his brother Theodosius, followed by that of the Elder Nicodemus, led Gregory and his second brother, Macarius, to attach themselves to the Monastery of the Great Lavra. Gregory was appointed chanter. His conduct in the cenobitic life was beyond reproach, and the brethren admired his zeal for putting into practice all the holy evangelic virtues. He lived with such abstinence as to appear unburdened by the flesh to the extent of being able to go three months without sleep. At the end of three years of common life, his soul thirsting for the sweet waters of the wilderness, he retired to the hermitage of Glossia, under the direction of an eminent monk called Gregory of Byzantium. With the passions purified, he was now able to rise up in prayer to the contemplation of the mysteries of the Creation. Solitude and inner stillness enabled him to keep his intellect fixed at all times in the depths of his heart, where he called on the Lord Jesus with compunction, so that he became all prayer, and sweet tears flowed continually from his eyes as from two fountains.

The incessant raids of Turkish pirates soon obliged Gregory and his companions to leave their hermitage. Together with twelve monks, he wanted to make the pilgrimage to the Holy Places and to seek refuge at Mount Sinai; but this did not prove feasible. Instead, he spent some time in Thessalonica, where he joined the group around the future Patriarch Isidore, who was endeavoring to spread the practice of the Jesus prayer among the faithful so that they might profit from the experience of the monks. In 1326, Gregory was ordained a priest, having understood in a vision that this was indeed the will of God. He then departed to found a hermitage in the area of Beroea, where he practiced an even stricter ascesis than before. For five days of the week he remained alone, fasting, keeping vigil and praying with abundant tears. He only appeared on Saturdays and Sundays to serve the Divine Liturgy, share a fraternal meal, and converse on some spiritual subject with his companions in the ascetic life. He continued thus to rise up in contemplation and to enter into closer union with God in his heart.

When his mother died, he went to Constantinople to fetch his sisters, whom he settled in a hermitage near his own. But as Serbian raids in the region became more and more frequent, he decided to go back to Mount Athos. He settled a little above the Lavra in the hermitage of Saint Savas, where he lived in greater seclusion than before, and could converse alone with God. He went to the monastery only infrequently and would receive his rare visitors on Sundays and feast days. Going on from that contemplation which is still outward, Gregory then attained to the vision of God in the light of the Holy Spirit and to the deification promised by Christ to His perfect disciples.

One day in a dream, he saw that he was full of a milk from heaven which, as it overflowed, changed into wine and filled the surrounding air with a wonderful scent. This was a sign to him that the moment had come to teach his brethren the mysteries that God revealed to him. He wrote several ascetic treatises at this time, and, in 1335, was appointed Abbot of the Monastery of Esphigmenou. But the two hundred monks who lived there understood neither his zeal nor his spiritual expectations so, after a year, he returned to his hermitage.

At that time, Barlaam, a monk from Calabria, won a great name for himself as a speculative thinker in Constantinople. He was particularly fond of expounding the mystical writings of Saint Dionysius the Areopagite, which he interpreted in an entirely philosophical way, making knowledge of God the object of cold reason and not of experience. When this refined humanist learned of the methods of prayer of some simple monks of his acquaintance, who allowed a place to the sensory element in spiritual life, he was scandalized. He took occasion to calumniate then and to accuse them of heresy. The hesychast monks appealed to Gregory who then wrote several polemical treatises in which he answered the accusations of Barlaam by locating monastic spirituality in a dogmatic synthesis.

He showed that ascesis and prayer are the outcome of the whole mystery of Redemption, and are the way for each person to make the grace given at Baptism blossom within himself. He also defended the authenticity of the methods which the Hesychasts used to fix the intellect in the heart; for since the Incarnation we have to seek the grace of the Holy Spirit in our bodies, which are sanctified by the Sacraments and grafted by the Eucharist into the Body of Christ. This uncreated grace is the very glory of God which, as it sprang forth from the body of Christ on the day of the Transfiguration, overwhelmed the disciples (Matthew 17). Shining now in the heart purified from the passions, it truly unites us to God, illumines us, deifies us and gives us a pledge of that same glory which will shine on the bodies of the Saints after the general Resurrection. In thus affirming the full reality of deification, Gregory was far from denying the absolute transcendence and unknowableness of God in His essence. Following the ancient Fathers, but in a more precise manner, he made a distinction between God's imparticipable essence and the eternal, creative and providential energies by which the Lord enables created beings to participate in His being, His life and His light without, however, introducing any division into the unity of the divine Nature. God is not a philosophical concept for Saint Gregory: He is Love, He is Living Person and consuming fire, as Scripture teaches (Deuteronomy 4:24), Who does everything to make us godlike.

Saint Gregory's brilliant answer to Barlaam was first accepted by the authorities of Mount Athos in the Hagiorite Tome and then adopted by the Church, which condemned Barlaam (and with him the philosophical humanism that would soon inspire the European Renaissance), during the course of two Councils at the Church of Saint Sophia in 1341.

Barlaam's condemnation and his departure for Italy did not bring the controversy to an end. No sooner had Gregory returned to his Athonite hermitage from Thessalonica where he had been writing his treatises in seclusion than Akindynos, an old friend of his, restated the substance of Barlaam's arguments and condemned Gregory's distinction between essence and energies as an innovation. Akindynos, who at first aspired to be an umpire between Barlaam and Gregory, was the kind of rigid conservative who does no more than repeat set phrases without seeking to enter into the spirit of the tradition. At the same time, a dreadful civil war broke out as a result of the rivalry between the Duke Alexis Apokaukos and Saint Gregory's friend, John Cantacuzenus (1341-47). The Patriarch, John Calecas, sided with Apokaukos and encouraged Akindynos to bring a charge of heresy against Gregory, which led to the excommunication and imprisonment of the Saint.

During the four years of Gregory's confinement, there was no slackening of his activity. He carried on a huge correspondence, and wrote an important work against Akindynos. When John Cantacuzenus gained the upper hand in 1346, the Regent, Ann of Savoy, came to the defense of the Saint and deposed the Patriarch on the eve of Cantacuzenus' triumphal entry into the City. He nominated Isidore as Patriarch (1347-50), and summoned a new Council to vindicate the Hesychasts. The controversy was not finally resolved until 1351, at a third Council which condemned the humanist Nicephorus Gregoras. In the Synodal Tome the doctrine of Saint Gregory on the uncreated energies and on the nature of grace was recognized as the rule of faith of the Orthodox Church.

Among Isidore's new episcopal appointments, Gregory was named Archbishop of Thessalonica in 1347; but he was unable to take possession of his see as the city was in the hands of the Zealots, the party opposed to Cantacuzenus. After finding shelter for a while in Lemnos, where he showed heroic devotion during an epidemic, Gregory was eventually able to enter the city acclaimed as if Christ Himself were coming in triumph, with the chanting of Paschal hymns.

During a voyage to Constantinople, he fell into the hands of some Turks, who held him for a year in Asia Minor (1354-55), but allowed him a measure of freedom. This, and his openness of spirit, enabled him to engage in amicable theological discussions with the Muslim doctors of religion and with the son of the Emir Orkhan. When he was set free, thanks to a ransom from Serbia, he returned to Thessalonica to take up his activity again as pastor and wonderworker. He suffered a long illness and, some time before his death, Saint John Chrysostom appeared to him with the invitation to join the choir of holy hierarchs immediately after his own feast. And, indeed, on November 14, 1359 the Saint gave up his soul to God. When he died, his countenance was radiant with a light like to that which shone on Saint Stephen (Acts 6:15). In this way God showed, through the person of his servant, the truth of his doctrine on the reality of deification by the uncreated light of the Holy Spirit. The veneration of Saint Gregory was approved by the Church in 1368. The Saint works many miracles even to the present day and, after Saint Demetrios, is regarded as the Protector of Thessalonica.

Orthodox Commemoration Of The Sunday Of Saint Gregory Palamas

The feast day of Saint Gregory Palamas is November 14, the day of his repose, however the Orthodox Church commemorates the Saint on the Second Sunday of Lent. As a Sunday of Great Lent, the commemoration is celebrated with the Divine Liturgy of Saint Basil the Great, which is preceded by a Matins (Orthros) service. A Great Vespers is conducted on Saturday evening.

Hymns Of The Feast

Apolytikion (Plagal of Fourth Tone)

O Gregory the Miracle Worker, light of Orthodoxy, support and teacher of the Church, comeliness of Monastics, invincible defender of theologians, the pride of Thessalonica, and preacher of grace, intercede forever that our souls may be saved.Listen »

Kontakion (Plagal of Fourth Tone)

With one accord, we praise you as the sacred and divine vessel 

A brief overview of St. Gregory Palamas's place in Great Lent

St. Gregory Palamas: Commemorated on March 20

This Sunday was originally dedicated to St Polycarp of Smyrna (February 23). After his glorification in 1368, a second commemoration of St Gregory Palamas (November 14) was appointed for the Second Sunday of Great Lent as a second 'Triumph of Orthodoxy.'

Saint Gregory Palamas, Archbishop of Thessalonica, was born in the year 1296 in Constantinople. St Gregory's father became a prominent dignitiary at the court of Andronicus II Paleologos (1282-1328), but he soon died, and Andronicus himself took part in the raising and education of the fatherless boy. Endowed with fine abilities and great diligence, Gregory mastered all the subjects which then comprised the full course of medieval higher education. The emperor hoped that the youth would devote himself to government work. But Gregory, barely twenty years old, withdrew to Mount Athos in the year 1316 (other sources say 1318) and became a novice in the Vatopedi monastery under the guidance of the monastic Elder St Nicodemus of Vatopedi (July 11). There he was tonsured and began on the path of asceticism. A year later, the holy Evangelist John the Theologian appeared to him in a vision and promised him his spiritual protection. Gregory's mother and sisters also became monastics.

After the demise of the Elder Nicodemus, St Gregory spent eight years of spiritual struggle under the guidance of the Elder Nicephorus, and after the latter's death, Gregory transferred to the Lavra of St Athanasius (July 5). Here he served in the trapeza, and then became a church singer. But after three years, he resettled in the small skete of Glossia, striving for a greater degree of spiritual perfection. The head of this monastery began to teach the young man the method of unceasing prayer and mental activity, which had been cultivated by monastics, beginning with the great desert ascetics of the fourth century: Evagrius Pontikos and St Macarius of Egypt (January 19).

Later on, in the eleventh century St Simeon the New Theologian (March 12) provided detailed instruction in mental activity for those praying in an outward manner, and the ascetics of Athos put it into practice. The experienced use of mental prayer (or prayer of the heart), requiring solitude and quiet, is called 'Hesychasm' (from the Greek 'hesychia' meaning calm, silence), and those practicing it were called 'hesychasts'.

During his stay at Glossia the future hierarch Gregory became fully embued with the spirit of hesychasm and adopted it as an essential part of his life. In the year 1326, because of the threat of Turkish invasions, he and the brethren retreated to Thessalonica, where he was then ordained to the holy priesthood.

St Gregory combined his priestly duties with the life of a hermit. Five days of the week he spent in silence and prayer, and only on Saturday and Sunday did he come out to his people. He celebrated divine services and preached sermons. For those present in church, his teaching often evoked both tenderness and tears. Sometimes he visited theological gatherings of the city's educated youth, headed by the future patriarch, Isidore. After he returned from a visit to Constantinople, he found a place suitable for solitary life near Thessalonica the region of Bereia. Soon he gathered here a small community of solitary monks and guided it for five years.

In the 1330s events took place in the life of the Eastern Church which put St Gregory among the most significant universal apologists of Orthodoxy, and brought him great renown as a teacher of hesychasm.

About the year 1330 the learned monk Barlaam had arrived in Constantinople from Calabria, in Italy. He was the author of treatises on logic and astronomy, a skilled and sharp-witted orator, and he received a university chair in the capital city and began to expound on the works of St Dionysius the Areopagite (October 3), whose 'apophatic' ('negative', in contrast to 'kataphatic' or 'positive') theology was acclaimed in equal measure in both the Eastern and the Western Churches. Soon Barlaam journeyed to Mt Athos, where he became acquainted with the spiritual life of the hesychasts. Saying that it was impossible to know the essence of God, he declared mental prayer a heretical error. Journeying from Mount Athos to Thessalonica, and from there to Constantinople, and later again to Thessalonica, Barlaam entered into disputes with the monks and attempted to demonstrate the created, material nature of the light of Tabor (i.e. at the Transfiguration). He ridiculed the teachings of the monks about the methods of prayer and about the uncreated light seen by the hesychasts.

St Gregory, at the request of the Athonite monks, replied with verbal admonitions at first. But seeing the futility of such efforts, he put his theological arguments in writing. Thus appeared the Triads in Defense of the Holy Hesychasts (1338). Towards the year 1340 the Athonite ascetics, with the assistance of the saint, compiled a general response to the attacks of Barlaam, the so-called Hagioritic Tome. At the Constantinople Council of 1341 in the church of Hagia Sophia St Gregory Palamas debated with Barlaam, focusing upon the nature of the light of Mount Tabor. On May 27, 1341 the Council accepted the position of St Gregory Palamas, that God, unapproachable in His Essence, reveals Himself through His energies, which are directed towards the world and are able to be perceived, like the light of Tabor, but which are neither material nor created. The teachings of Barlaam were condemned as heresy, and he himself was anathemized and fled to Calabria.

But the dispute between the Palamites and the Barlaamites was far from over. To these latter belonged Barlaam's disciple, the Bulgarian monk Akyndinos, and also Patriarch John XIV Kalekos (1341-1347); the emperor Andronicus III Paleologos (1328-1341) was also inclined toward their opinion. Akyndinos, whose name means 'one who inflicts no harm', actually caused great harm by his heretical teaching. Akyndinos wrote a series of tracts in which he declared St Gregory and the Athonite monks guilty of causing church disorders. The saint, in turn, wrote a detailed refutation of Akyndinos' errors. The patriarch supported Akyndinos and called St Gregory the cause of all disorders and disturbances in the Church (1344) and had him locked up in prison for four years. In 1347, when John the XIV was replaced on the patriarchal throne by Isidore (1347-1349), St Gregory Palamas was set free and was made Archbishop of Thessalonica.

In 1351 the Council of Blachernae solemnly upheld the Orthodoxy of his teachings. But the people of Thessalonica did not immediately accept St Gregory, and he was compelled to live in various places. On one of his travels to Constantinople the Byzantine ship fell into the hands of the Turks. Even in captivity, St Gregory preached to Christian prisoners and even to his Moslem captors. The Hagarenes were astonished by the wisdom of his words. Some of the Moslems were unable to endure this, so they beat him and would have killed him if they had not expected to obtain a large ransom for him. A year later, St Gregory was ransomed and returned to Thessalonica.

St Gregory performed many miracles in the three years before his death, healing those afflicted with illness. On the eve of his repose, St John Chrysostom appeared to him in a vision. With the words 'To the heights! To the heights!' St Gregory Palamas fell asleep in the Lord on November 14, 1359. In 1368 he was canonized at a Constantinople Council under Patriarch Philotheus (1354-1355, 1364-1376), who compiled the Life and Services to the saint.

NOTE: Those who are interested to know more about the history of St Gregory and his life and times, may wish to read our Historical Introduction to St Gregory Palamas, as well as refer to an associated historical timeline. We also offer an introduction to the theology of St Gregory.

Bulgakov, Handbook for Church Servers

During this week the holy Church continues to exhort us to fasting, prayer, penance, charity and other efforts of virtue, opening also to the true self these ascetic efforts. In the hymns for this week the holy Church chants:

“Prayer and fasting are a marvelous weapon: this Moses points out to us as the writer of the Law and Elijah shows us in zealous sacrifices”,

“When the men of Nineveh repented, Thou has delivered them from the wrath”,

“Fasting bore Samuel as fruit;”

“through fasting Samson grew up brave”,

“Elisha after fasting brought the dead child back to life”;

“through fasting priests and prophets were made perfect”.

“As Christ has taught us in the scriptures, a pure fast means the putting away of sin, the rejection of the passions, love for God, attentiveness in prayer, tears of compunction, and acts of mercy to the poor”.

Thus the holy church also appeals to us:

“let us keep a true fast before the Lord: let us abstain not only from food but from angry speech and lying, and from every other passion”,

“Let us keep a spiritual fast: let us loose every bond; let us avoid the stumbling blocks of sin; let us absolve our brothers from their debts, that we too may be forgiven our transgressions.”

“Come let us cleanse ourselves with mercies and compassions for the poor, not trumpeting them, nor revealing our good deeds, but let us not hang on the left hand the right hand business, let us not squander with vanity the fruit of mercies”;

“In this season of repentance, let us stretch out our hands in works of mercy; and then the ascetic struggles of the Fast will bring us to eternal life. For nothing saves the soul so much as generosity to those in need, and almsgiving combined with fasting will deliver a man from death. Let us do all this with gladness, for there is no better way, and it will bring salvation to our souls.”

From Monday of the second week we sing in the Compline the canons of the saints from the Menaion, which belongs to the period between Lazarus Saturday and Thomas Sunday, with the Theotokions of the canon; first we sing the canon to the Theotokos, then from the Menaion; after the third ode sing the kontakion and sessional hymn from the Menaion: then after the sixth ode sing the sessional hymn of the Theotokos: we sing the stikhera from the Menaion after the canon.

The order of service for all the Fridays up to the Friday of the Fifth Week is in the Rubrics, for the order of Wednesday and Friday of the first week, and for the Friday of the second week. On all the Fridays of the Holy Forty-day Fast we do not make prostrations at Vespers and Compline, except for those fixed in the Presanctified Liturgy (see the Rubrics for the Order of Friday of the First week and Monday of the Second week). On all the Fridays of Lent the Priest does the Little Dismissal at Compline.

On the Saturdays of the second, third, and fourth weeks of Great Lent the holy church prays for all the Saints, asking them, to intercede before God for us especially during Lent, and prays to the Lord for the departed.

Similar to the service for the departed done on the Saturday of the second week, there are like services on the following two Saturdays, except when a feast of the Forerunner, the 40 Holy Martyrs, or the Annunciation falls on them.

S.V. Bulgakov, Handbook for Church Servers, 2^nd ed. 1274 pp. (Kharkov, 1900) pp. 515-6.

Translated by Archpriest Eugene D. Tarris © 3/2/01. All rights reserved.

Second Sunday of Great Lent

Bulgakov, Handbook for Church Servers

The Holy Church calls the second Sunday of Great Lent the Sunday of the light creating fasts. In its Divine services, in line with the destruction of the sinful condition of man, it is descriptively and touchingly represented in the church hymns, which explains the Gospel parable about the Prodigal son, and praises the fast as a means to the beneficial inner light, and posits in this glorification a new impulse for the ascetic effort of the fast. The Orthodox teaching about fasting as a means for the beneficial inner light is opened with special power in the commemoration on this Sunday of St. Gregory Palamas, Archbishop of Thessalonica and Wonderworker (see Nov. 14). St. Gregory is known as the one who exposed the heresy of Barlaam, the Calabrian monk, who rejected the Orthodox teaching about the blessed light, which illuminates the internal person sometimes openly visible (as for example on Tabor and Sinai), and who did not admit the possibility to achieve this inner light through both prayer and fasting and other individual efforts.

At the Council in Constantinople called in 1341 concerning this heresy Barlaam, his disciple Akindynos, and their other accomplices were condemned for this false teaching. And during the subsequent time of his life St. Gregory zealously struggled for Orthodoxy, "not once", but "many times many" through his inspired speeches and writings denying the teachings and compositions of the evil followers of Akindynos and Barlaam. For this ascetic effort for the benefit of the Holy Church, and also for the confession and witness for the faith and Christ's flock, for the sanctity of the strict ascetic life and the deep edification for all ascetics through his works, St. Gregory is also glorified in the service on this day by the Holy Church. Thus the Holy Church, celebrating on the previous Sunday the triumph of Orthodoxy over all heresies, on the present Sunday celebrates the victory of Orthodox ascetic teachings over all false doctrines opposing it. The first celebration is in general for all Orthodox Christians; the second is for the use of ascetics, the monks. Patriarch Philotheus of Constantinople composed the church service in honor of the originator of this latter celebration, for St. Gregory. In it St. Gregory is also glorified, as "the labor of theology, the flaming mouthpiece of grace, the honorable vessel of the Spirit, the unshakable pillar of the church, the great adornment of the universe", "the sword and arrows for the slanderers" that broke, "the pride of Barlaamites, and any heretical power", "like the web of spiders" he brushed away, "the preacher of the divine light, the initiate of the heavenly mysteries of the Trinity", "the healer of human infirmities", "the most holy father, the good shepherd", "you gave your soul for your sheep", "the firm sufferer and faster", "the advocate of the pious, and the opponent of the impious, the fervent defender of the faith, the great guide and teacher", "the adornment of monastic life, glorified in action and contemplation".

Troparion, tone 8

O light of Orthodoxy, teacher of the Church, its confirmation.

O ideal of monks and invincible champion of theologians.

O wonderworking Gregory, glory of Thessalonica and preacher of grace.

Always pray to save our souls.

Kontakion, tone 4

Now is the time for action.

Judgment is at the doors.

So let us rise and fast,

Offering alms with tears of compunction and crying:

"Our sins are more in number than the sands of the sea;

But forgive us, O Creator of all,

So that we may receive the incorruptible crowns."

Liturgy of St. Basil the Great.

Epistle: Heb. 1:10-2:3; sel. 304.

For St. Gregory: Heb. 7:26-8:2; sel. 318.

Gospel: Mark 2:1-12; sel. 7.

For St. Gregory: John 10:9-16; sel. 36.

If a feast of a saint with the Polyeleos falls on this day, then the service for St. Gregory is dropped and is sung at Great Compline.

Barlaam propagated in the East the teaching of Abelard that the truth is only true when it is proved exclusively from the beginning of reason, and closely connected to this rationalism the teaching of Thomas Aquinas that God is entirely essence and that the essence and action in Him do not differ. This and other teachings rested on the ruminations and amplifications of the rationalism of Arianism then in the West. The Barlaamites taught that the light of Tabor was something material, created, revealed in space and painted in air because it was seen by the corporal eyes of people who were not yet consecrated by grace. Through such, i. _. through the created, they recognized all the divine actions and even the gifts of the Holy Spirit: the Spirit of wisdom and reason and so forth, not being afraid to reduce God to the category of the created, "subverting light and the blessed righteousness in the Kingdom of the Father of Heaven, the power and action of the Trihypostatic Divinity" (see the Synaxarion). And in general through their rationalistic Arian teaching the Barlaamites threatened to shake the very bases of Christian teachings on faith, asceticism and morals. St. Palamas and his fellow Athonite ascetics taught and proved by their very life what could not be proved by philosophical reasoning, but the constant purification of the soul accomplished by silent feelings and thoughts, incessant exercise in meditating on God and intelligent prayer or through intelligent action the person can achieve the inner light from above. But the essence of the Deity which, abiding in the unapproachable light cannot be seen, is inaccessible to our limitations and our sinfulness, and the action of the Deity (energia is an expression used in this sense by Aristotle), i.e. the active movement can be seen as the manifestation of the essence. This active manifestation of the Divine essence usually is opened by silence in the image of the light, which can sometimes be seen even by corporal eyes. For example, during the revelation of the Divinity of Jesus Christ on Tabor and during all the appearances and revelations of the Deity in the form of light and fire, for example, by Moses and Elijah, or by ancient Christian ascetics, for example, Anthony the Great, all those who have seen God saw with both corporal and noetic eyes the Divine light, the reflection of the Deity. This light of Tabor and all immediate actions, the manifestations of the Deity is called by them the uncreated Divinity, as the essence of God is uncreated. This name in the addition to the moral actions and acts of grace of the Deity stands for better understanding, which the Prophet Isaiah calls the Spirit of wisdom and reason, the Spirit of council and fortress, the Spirit of knowledge and piety, the Spirit of the fear of God. The teaching on the subject of essence is mysterious and incomprehensible for the natural mind, but is convincing, immutable for the believing heart! St. Palamas, having acted as the defender of this doctrine and the fervent exposer of the Barlaamites, rendered the Church a rather important service. He was revealed the spokesman of the purely contemplative direction, without extreme measures, into which, with all good intentions, some church writers sometimes fell. St. Palamas and his Palamites from all of the earliest contemplative spiritual world, made everything better, developing a reconciliatory direction. Many classically educated and prolific writers from the school of St. Palamas have written many articles in this reconciliatory, moderate direction. Many of his disciples have become instructors of the intelligent action in all Orthodox countries, mainly in Russia. Their views and rules live in the ascetical environment up to now and present a great interest for people of all callings and situations (See details in the Tserkovniya Vedomosti, (Church News) 1890, 9).

S. V. Bulgakov, Handbook for Church Servers, 2nd ed., 1274pp. (Kharkov, 1900) pp 516-517.

Translated by Archpriest Eugene D. Tarris © March 6, 2004. All rights reserved.