The Hesychasts

Sometime before 1429, Metropolitan Simeon of Thessalonica grasped the unity of thinking and action proceeding from Gregory Palamas that gave momentum to the late Byzantine Orthodox Church (Meyendorff 1974; Sinkewicz 2002: 131–82). For our purposes, Palamas’ position can be briefly sketched. Posing with the fathers the distinction between the divine essence and participable energies (or operations), Gregory Palamas insists that an infinite God must have necessarily infinite (i.e. uncreated) attributes. Thus, in asserting the transcendence of the divine essence, he simultaneously unravels the problem of the real possibility – that is, not illusory, not metaphorical, and not diminutive either – of participation of the human nature to the divine. Palamas’ doctrine is a creative, yet traditionalist, synthesis between the theological insights of Patriarch Gregory of Cyprus and the ascetical impetus of Patriarch Athanasios I. Like them both, he is deeply rooted in the patristic doctrine of deification. The psychosomatic method of prayer that he inherited from his masters Theoleptos of Philadelphia and Nicephoros the Italian was thus simply one instrument in a far more encompassing project that had the patristic revival as its focal point. To return to Simeon of Thessalonica, he identified several followers of Palamas responsible for furthering this renewal: ecumenical patriarchs Philotheos Kokkinos and Nilos Kerameus, metropolitans Nilos Kabasilas and Isidore Glabas of Thessalonica and Theophanis of Nicaea, as well as the lay theologian Nicholas Cabasilas. ¹ This testimony is interesting as Simeon flourished during the third generation of Palamite thinkers, acting as the leading liturgist of the movement (Balfour 1979). By his time and despite the fatal advances of the Ottoman Empire, the ecumenical patriarchate managed to reunite around itself the entire Byzantine Commonwealth at a time when the imperial authority was only a shadow of its former glory. Finally, the Great Church proved able enough to take successfully the challenge of the Ottoman “captivity” (cf. Runciman 1968: 128–58).