Concerning walling-off: How is it possible that Saint Gregory Palamas teaches one thing, and we today, who supposedly honor him, do another?

The striking similarities between the words and deeds of Kalekas and the anti-Hesychasts with Bartholomew and the Ecumenists.

Adamantios Tsakiroglou, historian

It is known that the struggles of St. Gregory Palamas were not directed only against Barlaam and Akindynos, but also against their supporter, Patriarch John XIV, surnamed Kalekas. St. Gregory, on account of the heretical mindsets and positions of Kalekas, had cut off his commemoration before the synodical condemnation of the Patriarch. Kalekas, after the Synod of 1341, which vindicated the positions of St. Gregory and condemned the heretical positions of Barlaam, moved against St. Gregory, whom—with the help of the state—he shut up in prison.

Indeed, he issued an encyclical letter anathematizing St. Gregory and his like-minded ones, that is, the Orthodox. Reading it, one could say that it was written today by the hands of some Ecumenist (or unfortunately even of a cleric in the style of Fr. Evangelos Papanikolaou, etc.). This said, among other things, the following:

“Palamas and his like-minded ones, …having dared unlawfully and without judgment to cut off my commemoration, we subject to the bond from the life-originating and holy Trinity, and we consign to the anathema. The signature: John, by the mercy of God archbishop of Constantinople, New Rome, and ecumenical patriarch.” (P.G. 150, 863D).

Other bishops also signed the anathema of the Saint, but the Saint did not obey; rather, he continued to serve privately. (P.G. 150, 880D).

We present excerpts from the teaching of the Saint (not our own, as some accuse us) concerning the cutting off of communion with heretical false shepherds. The accusations of the Saint could very well be mentioned also today, since the Ecumenists are the same as Kalekas and worse:

“Since, therefore, in this way and so many times all the fullness of the Orthodox has been cut off from him, it remains impossible for the one who has not been separated from him [i.e., it is impossible for the one who has not been cut off from Kalekas to be counted among the ranks of the pious], and for him to be of the list of Christians in truth and united to God according to pious faith, whoever for these reasons has been separated from him.” (EPE 3, 692, Refutation of the Explanation of the Tome of Kalekas).

“What share, what portion, what genuineness toward the Church of Christ can there be for the advocate of falsehood—toward the Church which, according to Paul, is ‘the pillar and ground of the truth,’ which also remains by the grace of Christ continually safe and unshaken, being firmly established upon those things upon which the truth itself has been established? For those who belong to the Church of Christ belong to the truth; and those who are not of the truth are not of the Church of Christ, and all the more so insofar as they themselves falsely claim, calling themselves sacred shepherds and arch-shepherds and being so called by one another—for we have been taught that Christianity is characterized not by persons but by the truth and exactness of the faith.” (Refutation of the Letter of Ignatius of Antioch, EPE 3, 606).

“For thus he also thinks fit to call us insubordinate and strangers to the Church, on the ground that we utterly refuse to be impious, he himself saying this… Such a one then, how would he not readily say that he alone and that greatest council suffice, since whatever is concocted and written against us as from that council is unquestionable?” (EPE 3, Refutation of Kalekas’ Letter, p. 590).

And the disciple of the Saint, Joseph Kalothetos, in his homily which is entitled “Against John Kalekas,” writes:

“This so-called good shepherd says, to be sure, that the Church has made us cast out, as not having been willing to give a written confession. Which Church does he claim has made us cast out? That of the Apostles? Indeed, we are entirely in agreement with that one, and its zealous students, and we have chosen to suffer everything on behalf of it… Thus he does not claim that that one has cast us out—how could he?—but that which he himself has set up as a newly-appeared Church and newly-appeared dogmas… From where are you a Church of the pious? From your teaching? From your manner? From your deeds? From your sound doctrines? Having become, then, a workshop of every falsehood, of every slander, of everything whatsoever base, of every seditious mindset, of all injustice, covetousness, sacrilege, robbery, profiteering, then you even ordain yourself—O what audacity!—a Church, not knowing that even Nestorius and Macedonius might well have claimed this, which you yourself claim. For they too had the same throne as you.

“From where are you a Church? From taking bribes? From selling off judgments? From not distinguishing between profane and holy things? From allowing the sanctuary to all impure and profane persons? From having persuaded people to be filled with bloodshed of those of the same lineage? From selling the grace of the Spirit? From filling the Church with every heresy—and I shall go to the very summit of evils—or from having sold for money your piety and that of your bishops and of those following you, whom you also boast of as being your Church? Such is the Church according to you, which you set up when shortly before, having defected from ours, you established it.”

If, therefore, the Church of Kalekas, of Bartholomew, is not the Church of Christ, St. Gregory Palamas advises us the following: “Let us flee, then, those who do not accept the patristic interpretations, but attempt to introduce from themselves the things contrary, and who pretend to preserve the words in their letter, yet drive away the pious meaning; and let us flee them more than one flees from a serpent (note: the agreement of the Saint with St. Photios the Great and with all the Fathers is clear).” (EPE 10, 356).

Extreme, the Saint? Schismatic, the Saint? Indiscriminate, the Saint? Does the Saint exert pressure with his writings?

 

Greek source: https://eugenikos.blogspot.com/2025/11/blog-post_54.html