The Struggles of Saint Gregory Palamas against the Heresy of His Time

Hieromonk Lavrentie | December 11, 2019

 

 

Meekness and Christian love are never contrary to, and cannot be separated from, zeal for the right faith. Otherwise, one would arrive at a hollow pietism. The close bond between them is expressed very wisely in the Paterikon by Abba Pimen (118) thus: “Whatever injustice your brother may do to you, and you become angry with him, you are angry in vain. […] But if he separates you from God, then be very angry”. For without this firm attitude, we distance ourselves from the source of good.

This is also the reason why the examples of the Saints should inspire us as well to follow a sound line of faith, an unwavering confession, and one with a spirit of goodness. Such a model is Saint Gregory Palamas. As a beholder of the uncreated light, he could not fail to combat those who blasphemed and put under a bushel precisely this light, the source of all virtues. It is not a matter of mad anger, but of irreconcilability with the soul-destroying lie, of unreserved love for the truth.

When we speak of love for the truth in Orthodoxy, what is meant is not a quarrel over words or a strict rigor with regard to certain dogmas, with regard to an abstract truth, but the cherishing of true spirituality and spiritual life, which frees us from sin. The truth defended is not theoretical, but practical, the life that actually flows within us through the grace of Christ. Therefore, it is no wonder that those lacking living faith remain indifferent, because they do not feel affected, whereas the Holy Fathers felt heresies as soul-destroying poisons. And Saint Gregory’s activity is exemplary in this regard through the way in which he positioned himself and through the teaching (hesychastic) which he elaborated and defended.

The beginning of the hesychastic disputes with Barlaam is eloquent. Although Saint Gregory tried to avoid a confrontation and to smooth things over, he found nothing but cunning. This heretic did not desire a polemic and asked him not to intervene, but neither did he cease to utter blasphemies against hesychastic prayer. Then “Saint Gregory answers him that, since he is attacking the right faith, he too feels attacked” (D. Stăniloae, The Life and Teaching of Saint Gregory Palamas, p. 22). As is also affirmed in the quotation at the beginning, every heresy ought to provoke a response, even if it does not represent a personal affront. But, according to the teaching of the Fathers, it is not right for us to seek our own material interest, but it is everyone’s duty to defend others who are wronged, and especially to react when God Himself is blasphemed.

Shortly afterward there followed the meeting of a Synod in Constantinople (June 1341), in which Saint Gregory was declared a defender of Orthodoxy, while Barlaam formally manifested his regret for the things he had maintained, only so as to escape a condemnation. And so it happened, the Synod changing the decision and not pronouncing a decision against him, but deciding that he would be excommunicated only in the event that he persisted in the things he had affirmed, and likewise anyone who would resume the accusations against the hesychasts (The Life and Teachings…, pp. 96-97). In fact, no written decision was even drafted, because it was considered that the subject was closed through Barlaam’s capitulation, and he fled to Italy the next day. However, because another heretic arose, Akindynos, who maintained roughly the same things, it was necessary for the same decisions to be formulated only a few months later (in August), again in a synodal setting.

Shortly after these events, the political circumstances changed. Between the two Synods of 1341 (June and August), Emperor Andronikos III died, and there followed a co-regency between the empress with her minor son John and John Kantakouzenos, the latter being a defender of the hesychasts. Through the intrigues especially of Patriarch John Kalekas, a conflict arose between Kantakouzenos and the empress, and he was driven out of Constantinople, returning only in 1347, when he again took power. During this period Saint Gregory was persecuted, imprisoned and placed under house arrest, deposed and exiled by Patriarch Kalekas, who had become a partisan of Akindynos. To these things Saint Gregory responded with dignity, not recognizing the condemnatory judgments and continuing to serve without commemorating the Patriarch (Contribution on the Theme…, p. 8). It is recorded that he was not alone, but that, at one point, there were at least six other persecuted bishops who broke communion with John Kalekas before his condemnation (The Life and Teachings…, p. 124). In general, the position of the hesychasts was dominant and recognized by the Church through the Synods of the years 1341, 1347, and 1351, as well as the later ones, from the time of Patriarch Philotheos Kokkinos. The only period in which the balance was overturned was between 1341 and 1347, when the empress was manipulated by the Patriarch into supporting the persecution of Saint Gregory. Nevertheless, even she finally convened a Synod, at which Kalekas and Akindynos were condemned and Saint Gregory was rehabilitated; at the end of it, John Kantakouzenos took power, and the final documents were drafted after the Patriarch had been given one more chance to defend himself, but he refused (The Life and Teachings…, p. 127).

However, we are especially interested in what Saint Gregory’s attitude was during these unfavorable years (1341-1347) toward the heretic and persecutor Patriarch John Kalekas and Akindynos, the promoter of the heresy of created energies, but also toward Patriarch Ignatius of Antioch, who was himself involved in the actions of the other two. Quite a bit of information on this subject has been preserved, summarized in Father Stăniloae’s book on the life of Saint Gregory and in three other Palamite writings (untranslated into Romanian) against Kalekas and Ignatius.

The ecclesiastical situation was favorable to the anti-hesychasts led by Akindynos and supported by Patriarch Kalekas, who even ordained the former as a deacon, intending to install him as bishop. Only through the interventions of the empress did he not succeed in doing this, and because of the disturbance produced in the city, so that in the end it came to the synodal condemnation and deposition from rank of the Patriarch. Until then, however, as I have already mentioned, Saint Gregory had been unjustly deposed, placed under house arrest, and imprisoned.

Initially Saint Gregory did not want to react to the heresies of Akindynos and Kalekas, but when he saw that their maneuvers were intensifying, he began to counteract them through polemical writings. In a text that combats a patriarchal letter opposed to him, he writes thus: “He who catalogued us as evil-believing feels displeasure because he is not considered and is not called by us right-believing…”. In the following paragraph he describes him as occupying the dignity of chief shepherd, but working against the truth: “Now the sanctified leader of all the right-believing, and the master (πρυτανις=president) and teacher of the truth and of the wisdom according to right belief, and the preacher and giver of the peace of Christ, has shown himself an instructor of offenses and of falsehood and of the things that harm the truth of right belief, and he writes to the common injury of the souls under him, and strives to fill all his hearers with a profane state”. It is clearly seen from these lines that he recognizes his ecclesiastical rank: “This is a lie (that he has received the care of souls and that he is obligated to obtain their salvation) difficult to detect and mingled with deception, although there exists in it a part of truth set as bait and prepared with cunning in order to harm through falsehood. For it is a lie that this letter was inscribed for the obtaining of salvation, but it is true that he received this care and has the obligation of obtaining [salvation].” [1]

However, besides the fact that he recognizes his ministry and place as a hierarch in the Church, although he works to the detriment of the right faith, there are also other very harsh statements directed at Patriarch Kalekas and Ignatius of Antioch. Thus, in the same work, he characterizes John Kalekas in this way: If “someone brings into communion and makes co-ministers those who have been disavowed (by a Synod), while those justified there, he condemns and removes, is he not the manifest inheritor of that condemnation of those who were condemned, and truly fallen away and alienated (ἔκπτωτος καί ἀλλότριος) from the Church?” [2] The arguments for these characterizations are brought in another writing, directed against Ignatius of Antioch, in which he states: “What inheritance, what portion, what authenticity with regard to the Church of Christ does the advocate of falsehood have, the Church being «the pillar and ground of the truth» (1 Tim. 3:15) according to Paul, which remains unmoved and unshaken forever, firmly fixed in the things which the truth has confirmed? For those who are of the Church of Christ are of the truth; and those who are not of the truth are not of the Church of Christ either, and this especially insofar as they lie to themselves, calling themselves holy (ἱερούς=sacred) pastors and chief shepherds, both themselves and by one another. For we have been taught that Christianity is not characterized by persons, but by truth and by the exactness of the faith.” [3] Although one might hastily deduce from these words that he does not recognize him as a hierarch of the Church, nevertheless in the same work he names him and recognizes him as chief shepherd.

These qualifications cannot be understood otherwise than in the sense of Canon 15, namely that hierarchs who openly preach a heresy are pseudo-bishops and cause division in the Church. In the words of Saint Gregory, they are fallen away and alienated from the Church, although not yet removed from rank and from communion. In other words, they cause a state of division which demands the opposition of the right-believing, so as not to allow the Church to remain led by wolves instead of authentic shepherds.

In a work directed against the Tomos written by Patriarch Kalekas, Saint Gregory writes of him that he is another Barlaam and liable to the same condemnations and anathemas as he was. And the difficult situation as a whole is described summarily in the final paragraph: “Since this man has thus and so many times been cut off from the whole pleroma of the Orthodox, it remains impossible to find among the right-believing anyone who has not been excommunicated by him; but whoever among these has been excommunicated for these reasons is truly in the catalogue of Christians and united with God through the right-worshiping faith.” [4]

Saint Gregory also participated in the Synods of 1347 and 1351, where he signed the decisions taken there. Although he refused the episcopal see in 1341, he accepted being a hierarch for Thessaloniki in 1347, leaving room for Ignatius, a disciple of his, to be elected Patriarch after the deposition of Kalekas.

The synodal condemnations mentioned are also important because they were issued only against those who had preached the heresy, whereas all the others were left in the clergy and in communion. The Synod of 1347 strips two old Akindynite bishops of all clerical dignity, while suspending three others from office for a limited period in which they were to show that they were returning; otherwise, it reckons them deposed from the clergy and excommunicated from the Church. This decision shows tact and pastoral patience, aiming only at those who were manifestly in error. At the next Synod, in 1351, two of the bishops previously spared are deposed unconditionally and accepted into communion if they receive the right faith (The Life and Teachings…, pp. 130 and 148). From all these things it is seen that the heretics were reckoned full bishops until deposition, and those previously in communion with them are not accused of any fault. Only those who actively supported the heresy fell under anathemas and depositions.

Of course, it must be kept in mind that all these things took place after the pronouncement of a solemn synodal condemnation of the Barlaamite heresy as early as 1341, by which it was required that those who upheld the same ideas be condemned. However, Saint Gregory Palamas’ merit as a defender of the faith is in no way diminished, because in practice he fought against heretics who had not been condemned by name and undertook persistent labors so that the good order of the Church might be restored.

His efforts were intense, writing extensive anti-heretical works through which he combated all the erroneous ideas upheld by his adversaries, but also exposed all the manipulations which they were undertaking. His teaching was elaborate and marked Orthodox theology forever, distinguishing it from scholastic Catholic theology. In practice, he established and explained the truth of the faith through clear formulas founded patristically, clarifying and resolving the theological turmoil of his time.

His activity remains a living example across the ages also for us today, who are faced with similar situations. Like the majority of the Holy Fathers, he was a pillar of the truth who must be followed, according to the measure of each of our powers, without our resembling his adversaries, who strove, willingly or out of weakness, to be partisans of heresy, not of Orthodoxy, as the two Patriarchs did, John Kalekas of Constantinople and Ignatius of Antioch.

 

1. Gregory Palamas, Complete Works, 3, ΕΠΕ 61, pp. 530-532.

2. Ibid., p. 546.

3. Ibid., pp. 606-608.

4. Ibid., p. 692.

 

Romanian source:

https://theodosie.ro/2019/12/11/luptele-sf-grigorie-palama-cu-erezia-din-vremea-sa/