On the Spiritual Circumcision of the Heart (St. Gregory Palamas)

 

By St. Gregory Palamas

Even when your body does nothing, sin can be active in your mind.

When your soul inwardly repulses the evil one’s attack by means of prayer, attention, remembrance of death, godly sorrow and mourning, the body, too, takes its share of holiness, having acquired freedom from evil actions.

This is what the Lord meant by saying that someone who cleans the outside of a cup has not cleansed it inside, but clean the inside, and the whole cup will be clean (Matthew 23:25-26).

“Strive as hard as you can to ensure that your inner labour is according to God’s will, and you will conquer the outward passions” (Abba Arsenios, Apophthegmata Pateron 9).

The Simplicity of God According to Saint Gregory Palamas

Simplicity of God According... by tensous12113

Homily on our Holy and Wonderworking Hierarch Gregory Palamas Archbishop of Thessaloniki (Elder Gabriel Dionysiatis)

 Homily on our Holy and Wonderworking Hierarch 

Gregory Palamas Archbishop of Thessaloniki

By Archimandrite Gabriel,
Abbot of the Holy Monastery of Dionysiou

1959

Six hundred years have passed since our Father among the Saints Gregory Palamas, Archbishop of Thessaloniki, reposed in the Lord. In 1959, honoring this anniversary in a grand manner, beginning with November 14, the day of his repose, the Church of Thessaloniki dedicated a festive celebration of three days in that city.Among the participants were representatives of all the Orthodox Churches and leaders in the field of Orthodox Theology. The celebrations constituted a major event in the history of the whole Orthodox Church, and by extension of the Holy Mountain, for it was here that the Holy Father began his spiritual activities and arduous struggles for Orthodoxy, having as his co-workers a group of select, God-inspired monastics.

A Second Triumph of Orthodoxy Over Heresy (George Mantzarides)

 

By George Mantzarides,
Professor Emeritus of the Theological School of the 

Aristotle University of Thessaloniki

On the first Sunday of the Fast of Great Lent, the Church celebrates the triumph of Orthodoxy over the heresies. The specific historical event which was the basis and starting-point for this celebration was the victory of the Church against the iconoclasts. The latter proclaimed that the use of icons is anti-Christian. They would not accept the veneration of the icon of Christ, nor the honor paid to the other icons or to the relics of saints. This attitude of theirs was not superficial, but came from a more profound denial of the depiction of Christ, which, in the end, led to a denial of his incarnation and his presence in the world as a real human being. The way the conflict over the icons ended shows its heretical nature. It really was a true heresy.

Homilies on the Ecumenical Synods - The Ninth Ecumenical Synod (Metr. Hierotheos of Nafpaktos)

 

Homilies on the Ecumenical Synods

The Ninth Ecumenical Synod (1351 A.D.)

By Metropolitan Hierotheos of Nafpaktos and Agiou Vlasiou 

When we speak of the Ninth Ecumenical Synod, we mean the Great Synod of 1351, in which Saint Gregory Palamas endorsed the Orthodox teaching on the participation in the uncreated energies of God and sacred hesychasm.

This Synod was convened by the Emperor John Kantakouzenos and it was presided over by the Patriarch Kallistos of Constantinople, a disciple of the hesychast Saint Gregory of Sinai, and many hesychast fathers attended. The Minutes of the Synod also included the decisions of the Synod of 1341 and 1347, which condemned Barlaam and Akindynos and thus the decisions are completely Orthodox.

This Synod is Ecumenical, firstly, because it has all the normal preconditions of an Ecumenical Synod; secondly, because the subject with which it dealt, that the energies of God are uncreated, is a continuation of the Sixth Ecumenical Synod, which it commemorates in the Minutes; and thirdly, because its decisions were included in the "Synodikon of Orthodoxy", together with the decisions of the Seventh Ecumenical Synod, and as we know the "Synodikon of Orthodoxy" is read on the Sunday of Orthodoxy.

Second Sunday of Great Lent - Saint Gregory Palamas and the Paralytic (Metr. Hierotheos of Nafpaktos)

By Metropolitan Hierotheos of Nafpaktos and Agiou Vlasiou

"Then they came to Him, bringing a paralytic who was carried by four men." (Mk. 2:3)

On the Second Sunday of the Fast, the Church decided to celebrate the memory of Saint Gregory Palamas, as a continuation of the Sunday of Orthodoxy. Indeed, today we heard the echo of last Sunday, since Saint Gregory was a worthy son of the Church, who contributed to the triumph of Orthodoxy in a difficult time.

Saint Gregory Palamas, a great hesychast, and then Archbishop of Thessaloniki, expressing the experience of all the Holy Fathers, fought the Rationalism of the fourteenth century and protected the Orthodox Faith from the danger of agnosticism and pantheism, developing the fundamental truth of the Church around the mystery of the indivisible division of the essence and energy of God. This teaching is necessary for our time, because many have a personal ignorance of the energy of God, as a result of which they confuse it with something created, while others speak thoughtfully about these great issues of the faith.

Homily for the Sunday of Saint Gregory Palamas (Archimandrite George Kapsanis)

In 1341 the teachings of Barlaam the Calabrian were condemned at the Synod of Constantinople and the Ecumenical Patriarch ordered his writings to be burned, while the teachings of St. Gregory Palamas were vindicated.

 By Archimandrite George Kapsanis,
Former Abbot of Gregoriou Monastery on Mount Athos

(Delivered in 1987)

Today we celebrated the memory of Saint Gregory Palamas, Archbishop of Thessaloniki. Saint Gregory is a great theologian of our Church, a great spiritual teacher, a great Hierarch of our Church.

In the fourteenth century westerners, as today so also then, were imbued with the spirit of rationalism and could not understand what divine Grace is and how God's Grace works in man. They tried to rationally interpret what is the Grace of God.

Second Sunday of Great Lent - Sunday of Saint Gregory Palamas (Elder Epiphanios Theodoropoulos)

By Archimandrite Epiphanios Theodoropoulos

On this day is celebrated the memory of our Holy Father Gregory Palamas, Archbishop of Thessaloniki. The Horologion says this about him:

"This divine father was from Asia Minor, and as a child he was raised in the royal court of Constantinople, where he was educated in both our own and in secular wisdom. After this, while still a youth, he abandoned the imperial court and went to live on the Holy Mountain of Athos and in a skete of Beroea. He spent some time in Thessaloniki to treat an illness brought on by his rigorous lifestyle. In Constantinople he attended a synod that had convened in 1341 against Barlaam the Calabrian and in 1347 against Akindynos who was like-minded to him, where he bravely contested on behalf of the correctness of the doctrines of Christ's Eastern Church. In 1349 he was appointed Metropolitan of Thessaloniki, and he shepherded this flock in an apostolic manner for 13 years. Having lived a total of 63 years in which he wrote many things, he departed to the Lord. His sacred relic is preserved in the metropolis of Thessaloniki, and his Service of Praise was composed by Philotheos the Patriarch in the year 1368, at which time his feast was established for this day."

"On Peace With One Another": A Timeless and Always Relevant Homily of Saint Gregory Palamas

 

This first homily of St. Gregory Palamas was delivered during a procession, which took place either in December of 1350 or in January of 1351, on the third day following his entry into Thessaloniki, when the city was liberated from the Zealots by Emperor John VI Cantacuzenos (1347-1354). Though elected Metropolitan in May of 1347, Palamas, because of the strife caused by the fierce politico-religious disputes of the day, had twice been refused entry into the city, once in 1347 and then again in 1348. With this homily, he encouraged all the Orthodox Christians of Thessaloniki to be at peace with another, and unite in their purpose in Christ.

HOMILY ONE

On Peace With one Another

By Saint Gregory Palamas

Delivered three days after his arrival in Thessalonica.

1. We are all brethren in that we have one Creator and Lord, who is Father to us all. That brotherhood we share with animals and inanimate nature. We are also brethren one to another as descendants of one earthly father, Adam, and the only creatures made in God's images. But even this is common to all nations. More especially, however, we are brethren in that we are of the same race and live in the some place; and above and else, share one mother, the Holy Church and true piety, the author and finisher of which is Christ, the rightful Son of God. Not only is He our God, but He was well-pleased to be our Brother, our Father and our Head, bringing us all together into one body and making us members of one another and of Himself.

Synaxis of the Holy Family of Saint Gregory Palamas

In 2009, at the recommendation of the Metropolis of Berea, Naousa and Kampania, the Ecumenical Patriarchate established a feast day in honor of the family of St. Gregory Palamas. His father's name was Constantine, his mother Kalloni, his brothers were Makarios and Theodosios, and his sisters were Theodote and Epicharis. The day chosen for the feast is December 18th or the Sunday after November 14th.

St. Philotheos Kokkinos, a disciple of St. Gregory and his biographer, writes the following of his father:

"Gregory was the offspring of noble and pious parents. So virtuous was his father that the emperor Adronikos II Palaiologos, made him one of his counselors. And not only the earthly king, but also God the Heavenly King, honored and glorified him even while he was still alive with miracles. Foreknowing his death, Constantine – that was his name – took the Angelic Habit, that is, he became a monk, and was named Constantios."

An Interview with Metropolitan Hierotheos of Nafpaktos on the Relevance of Saint Gregory Palamas Today

 

 

Question: In your book Saint Gregory Palamas as a Hagiorite you write that Saint Gregory is a saint who can help modern man a lot. What could we, who live in a world very different from the world of the fourteenth century, learn from St. Gregory?

Answer: Beyond what you say, in my book I write that our time is parallel to the time in which Saint Gregory Palamas lived, that is, there are the same movements and the same traditions. That is, in the 14th century in the Roman Empire, the so-called Byzantium, there was a living Orthodox Tradition, expressed by St. Gregory, but at the same time there were many humanistic elements, which means that humanists relied heavily on the human factor. Thus, there were Christians who lived a mystical and ascetic life, but at the same time there were Christians who were influenced by other traditions and in fact were humanists, that is, they relied on the human factor.

Saint Gregory Palamas and the Black Death

By John Sanidopoulos

In the year 1349 Saint Gregory Palamas was sent to the island of Lemnos in the Aegean Sea to bring calm to the people who resisted Emperor John VI Kantakouzenos. While the Saint was on the island, the Black Death was spreading throughout the Roman Empire, and it came to Lemnos itself. The Black Death was a devastating global epidemic of bubonic plague.

This plague had visited Constantinople in the spring of 1347 and decimated the capital. One western chronicle reports that eight out of every nine of the capital's populace perished, while another said two thirds of the city died. Though it is debated whether this number is exaggerated, nonetheless the number of victims was extraordinarily high in the Queen City. It was through Constantinople that the Black Death spread into Europe, where it killed an estimated 25 million people. As one chronicler wrote of this plague: "So incurable was the evil, that neither any regularity of life, nor any bodily strength could resist it."

When the plague ravaged Lemnos in 1349, the Saint formed a procession with all the people that they may entreat God to put an end to the death toll. Without hesitation, Palamas would visit those areas highly infected where many feared to tread. After fervent prayer and entreaty, the following day the epidemic ceased on the island.

Even before this, it is believed that Saint Gregory was in Constantinople in 1348, when the plague was still ravaging the city. There he probably preached his Homily 31 in August of 1348. In this homily he talks about the origin of death and sickness being in the devil and sin. He further said: "The Fathers teach us that anyone who falls ill should not resort to spells and sorcerers but to God, to the intercession of His saints, and to the petitions, entreaties, and prayers on our behalf of those who have consecrated and dedicated their whole life to Him."

Another homily delivered by Saint Gregory during the Black Death was Homily 39. It was delivered during the supplicatory procession held on account of the widespread deadly plague at that time, probably in either Constantinople or Lemnos. In this homily he preached against vice, warning from examples of Holy Scripture how vice brings harm to people. As he states: "It is on account of behavior such as this that we are being punished and shall be again... Do you want to find out how evil covetousness is? It can be discerned from the plague from which we are suffering now. As you can observe, when the blood, one of the elements of the body, becomes excessive, it brings death to the victims. Just as this excess within the body destroys the body, so greed in the soul destroys the soul and kills it, banishing from it that holier life, which is the grace of God. Such a death of the soul is always a precursor of the bodily death, which results from being abandoned by God." And he concludes:

"The Lord says, 'I will remember your sins no more.' Provided, of course, we either flee away from [sin] never to return, or else we propitiate God through confession and works of repentance equivalent to our iniquities, reconciling Him to ourselves through active humility. Then, if God's love for us will consent to make up for what we lack, we shall be delivered now from this manifestation of divine anger, from widespread premature death and the universal destruction it causes, and in the age to come we shall obtain everlasting life, to the glory of Christ."

A Clarification on the Ascension of Enoch and Elijah by St. Gregory Palamas

By St. Gregory Palamas

Today the Lord not only stood with His disciples after His resurrection, but was also parted from them and was taken up into heaven as they watched, ascended and entered into the true Holy of Holies and sat down on the right hand of the Father, far above all principality and power and every name and honor that is known and named, either in this world, or in that which is to come. There were many resurrections before Christ’s resurrection, and similarly, there were many ascensions before His ascension. The Spirit lifted up Jeremiah the prophet, and an angel took up Habakkuk. In particular it is written that Elijah went up with a chariot of fire. But even he did not go beyond the realms of earth, and the ascension of each of those mentioned was just a sort of movement lifting them up from the ground without taking them out of the area surrounding the earth. Similarly, the others who were resurrected all died and returned to the earth. By contrast, Christ has risen and death no longer has dominion over Him, and now He has ascended and sat down on high, every height is below Him and bears witness that He is God over all.

- Homily 1 on the Ascension of Christ

God carried away Enoch too, but did He take him to Heaven? Certainly not! For "no man hath ascended up to Heaven, but He that came down from Heaven." ... If, however, it is written that Enoch was moved to somewhere on earth by God, he was clearly taken to a lesser place than that now allotted to the Virgin, for nowhere on earth is more sacred than the Holy of Holies.

- Homily 2 on the Entrance of the Theotokos into the Temple

The Heart in the Hesychastic Treatises of St Gregory Palamas

The Heart in the Hesychastic Treatises of St Gregory Palamas

By Monk Vartholomaeos

Introduction

In a Russian village not so long ago, a pious middle-aged Russian woman, striving to live a conscientious Christian life, went to see her priest for confession. Having listened to her for a while, and perceiving her general instability of thought and therefore also life, the elderly priest took a small metal cross into his hand, and in a friendly, but stern manner, struck the woman twice upon the head saying, ‘you silly woman, go inside, go inside, and you will find rest’. This unorthodox behaviour of the confessor, in a strange way, is a most practical and direct way to express what we mean by the term Hesychasm.

An Orthodox Evaluation of Certain Teachings in the Writings of John Scotus Eriugena in Light of the Theology of St Gregory Palamas

By Father Geoffrey Ready

Introduction

He makes a pathetic and not undignified figure, this eager, slightly-built Irishman,

with his subtle mind, his studious habits, his deeply reverent spirit,

his almost fanatical devotion to the wise men of former days,

Pagan or Christian, who had lived in the light of a wider civilisation:

called upon to fight the battles of the West with arms forged in the East,

and reprimanded even in the hour of conquest for having transgressed the rules of the field.

Alice Gardner, Studies in John the Scot.

He deviated from the path of the Latins

while he kept his eyes intently fixed on the Greeks;

wherefore he was reputed an heretic.

William of Malmesbury, de Pontificibus.

John Scotus Eriugena stands as a remarkable figure in the spiritual history of the Christian West. His native Ireland was insula sanctorum — the "Isle of the Saints," where Orthodox Christianity, planted by Saint Pádraig in the fifth century, had taken such root that it had created an entire monastic culture and produced countless thousands of glorified saints. By the ninth century, however, the Apostolic and Patristic Tradition of glorification which had transformed Ireland was coming under an attack which would ultimately prove more devastating than those of the Vikings who were by now violently raiding monastic settlements along the Irish coasts.

St. Gregory Palamas: The Wonder of Noetic Prayer

By Archimandrite Dionisios Karagiannis

During the Second Sunday of Great Lent, the Church celebrates the memory of the epitome of faith and life, St. Gregory Palamas, later Archbishop of Thessaloniki, who, according to the hymns, is the great teacher of the Church and the preacher of divine light.

The distinction of essence and energies of God involves all of those things God can share and those He cannot share. The essence of God is inaccessible and unknown to creation, including people. However, one can come into relationship and communion with God through His uncreated energies, and the grace offered generously.

Confession of the Orthodox Faith (St. Gregory Palamas)

Among the little known works of St. Gregory Palamas is his Confession of the Orthodox Faith. It was written probably when he was in prison in 1343-1344, and it was probably first read publicly when he was ordained Archbishop of Thessaloniki in 1347. Most famously it was read by him at the second session of the Synod at Blachernae in 1351. According to the testimony of Gregory Palamas himself, his Confession possesses a precision rarely found in his other works. It presents the essentials of his theological system.

The first English translation was made by Aristeides Papadakis in 1969, which can be read here. Below is a translation from 1993 by Reader Patrick Barker, now Hieromonk Patapios. The original Greek can be found at PG 151:763D-768C.

Saint Nikodemos of Vatopaidi, Teacher of Saint Gregory Palamas (+ 1322)

St. Nikodemos of Vatopaidi (Feast Day - July 11)

Verses

You were seen as victorious in praxis and theoria,
Against the most-profane enemy, Nikodemos.
How unrewarded it is to leave behind the words,
Of Nikodemos, O reward of a watchful nous.

Saint Nikodemos, whose name in the world was Nikephoros, lived as an ascetic in a cell near the Vatopaidi Monastery at Mount Athos in the early fourteenth century. We learn about his personality from the Patriarch of Constantinople, Saint Philotheos Kokkinos, in his biography of Saint Gregory Palamas. According to Patriarch Philotheos, Saint Nikodemos, “a man admirable in his praxis and theoria,” lived the monastic life first at the Mount of Auxentius near Chalcedon, which had been a famous center of monasticism as early as the fifth century.

Saint Theoleptos, Metropolitan of Philadelphia (+ 1322)

St. Theoleptos of Philadelphia (Feast Day - June 25)

Saint Nikodemos, in his Introduction to the writings of Saint Theoleptos in the Philokalia, tells us the following about him:

"Theoleptos, the truly great luminary of Philadelphia, flourished during the reign of Andronikos II Palaiologos, around the year 1325. He first lived the solitary life at the Holy Mountain, and from there received the dignity of Primate of the Metropolis of Philadelphia. Saint Gregory (Palamas) the Archbishop of Thessaloniki was his guide and mystagogue in lessons of excellence. He initiated him in sacred watchfulness and noetic prayer, although he still lived in the world, as is written in the life of Gregory written by Patriarch Philotheos.

The Meaning of Christ Eating Baked Fish and Honeycomb Before His Ascension

By St. Gregory Palamas

That incorruptible body was fed after the resurrection, not because it needed food, but to prove it had risen and to demonstrate that it was the same one as He had eaten with them before the passion. It did not, however, consume the food in the way that mortal bodies do, but by divine energy, as, so to speak, fire dissolves wax, except that fire has to have fuel to sustain it, whereas immortal bodies do not need food for sustenance.