Icon Saint Gregory Palamas

Icon Saint Gregory Palamas silkscreen of excellent quality with “” vivid “” colors and gold acrylic background.

Feast of 14 November

Saint Gregory Palamas was a great theologian and an outstanding orator and philosopher. We do not know the time and place of his birth. (S. Efstratiadis, however, in his hagiography, states that St. Gregory was born in 1296 AD in Constantinople, to Constantine the Syclitic and the pious Culloni). We do know, however, that during the first half of the 14th century AD he was at the imperial court in Constantinople, from where he retired to Mount Athos for the sake of a quieter life, and devoted himself to his moral perfection and various studies.

In 1335 A.D. with his two proofs of his “On the Emancipation of the Holy Spirit”, he came into conflict with Barlaam of Calabria, who taught that man cannot know God, and even more so cannot be united with Him. In Barlaam’s words, God is “closed in on Himself” and cannot unite with men. Therefore, the “hesychastics”, i.e. those monks who said that man, if he has a pure heart and if he concentrates on “heartfelt prayer” (the “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me”), can unite with God and be enlightened and see the Uncreated Light, regardless of his education, were not Orthodox but “Messalianists” and “navel-gazers”. After these statements by Barlaam, Palamas settled in Thessaloniki from where he began the struggle “for the Hieros quietists”, i.e. those who practiced quietism, even writing his homonymous speeches. The issue of this struggle was mainly the positive or negative aspect of the divine substance. Gregory, armed with great erudition and strong criticism on matters of sacred Scripture, distinguished between divine substance immathectus and divine energy methectus. And this he supported according to the spirit of the Fathers, and the Church ratified his interpretation by four Councils. In the last one, held in Constantinople in 1351 AD, Palamas himself was present. But Gregory wrote many different theological works, some 60.

Later, Patriarch Isidore, initially elected him bishop of Thessaloniki. However, due to the issues of the time, he temporarily withdrew to Lemnos. But then he took up his duties. He died in 1360 AD and was immediately honored as a saint. Patriarch Philotheos wrote in 1376 AD a eulogy to Gregory Palamas, together with a service, and appointed his ecclesiastical commemoration on the second Sunday of Lent.

His honest body, after the exhumation, was indestructible, that is, it did not rot, but was fragrant and miraculous. To the Latins, however, the vassals of the Pope, the remembrance of the Saint, and even a full body, was a thick thorn. That is why they often slandered him, saying that for his sins he remained “unsolved”, and that the earth did not, out of repugnance, accept to dissolve him “to the extent of his sins”! In the 19th century A.D. the temple of the Saint was destroyed by fire and his honest skeleton was burnt leaving only the bones intact!

The Catholics kept such a tight rein that when our ecclesiastical sequences were printed in Venice – during the years of the Turkish occupation – the Doge gave his permission for the publication only if there was no relevant reference to the Saint. So for several years that the publications from Venice were in circulation, his feast was almost forgotten. Around the middle and end of the 20th century, the memory of his glorious struggles was revived and he was given his proper place in the Orthodox churches.

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