Introduction To St Gregory Palamas

Gregory Palamas (1296-1359)-monk, archbishop and theologian-was a major figure in 14th-century Orthodox Byzantium. This, his greatest work, presents a defense in support of the monastic groups known as the "hesychasts," the originators of the Jesus Prayer.

"This richly documented and lavishly illustrated study of Orthodox spirituality traces the development of "Orthodox mysticism" from the desert fathers through the patristic tradition to Byzantine hesychasm and its heritage in Russian monasticism. It shows how the work of Palamas transcends the limits of one school of spirituality and renews in its deepest essence the life of the Christian Mystery."--Jacket.

Explores a fourteenth-century debate over man’s knowledge of God.

The fourteenth-century Greek hesychast and controversialist, Gregory Palamas, has been so successfully cast as 'the other' in Western theological discourse that it can be difficult to gain a sympathetic hearing for him. In the first part of this book, Norman Russell traces the historical reception of Palamite thought in Orthodoxy and in the West, and investigates how 'Palamism' was constructed in the early twentieth century by both Western and Eastern theologians (principally Martin Jugie and John Meyendorff) for polemical or apologetic purposes. Russell argues that we need to go behind these ideological constructions in order to gain a true perception of the teaching of Gregory Palamas. In his recent survey of Palamite scholarship, Robert Sinkewicz noted that it is now time to raise the larger questions. The second part of the book attempts to do this, following the contours of Palamas' thinking in three areas: his relationship to tradition, his philosophy, and his theology. Russell shows that Palamite thought, when freed of misunderstanding and misrepresentation, has the potential to enrich our understanding of divine-human communion. This study contributes to the changing paradigm of scholarship on Palamas, nudging it towards the point at which Palamite thought can be used fruitfully by contemporary Western and Eastern theologians without the need to subscribe to what has been regarded as 'Palamism'.

Gregory Palamas, a monk of Mount Athos andmetropolitan of Thessalonike from 1347 to 1357, was a leadingfourteenth-century Byzantine intellectual. He was the chief spokesman for thehesychasts in the controversy bearing that name, which began when a charge ofheresy was laid against him in 1340 and ended with his proclamation as a saintin 1368. Although excellent English translations of some of Palamas'theological writings are available, very few texts relating to his historicalrole have yet been translated. This book contains the first English translationof the contemporary Life of Palamasby Philotheos Kokkinos, which is our principal source of biographicalinformation on him. Also translated into English for the first time are theSynodal Tomoi from 1341 to 1368,which chart the progress of the hesychast controversy from the viewpoint of thevictors, together with the corpus of material relating to Palamas' year ofcaptivity among the Turks, which offers a unique insight into conditions forChristians and Muslims in the early Ottoman emirate. The translations, all ofwhich are based on critical texts, are preceded by introductions which setPalamas in his historical context and propose some changes to the conventionalchronology of his life.