Palamism Research Papers - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

- by
- •
- Palamism, Icona

St Gregory Palamas Seminar: International Research into the Philosophical and Theological Work of St Gregory Palamas. Topic: Philokalia through the Philosophy and Theology of St Gregory Palamas. Veroia (Holy Monastery of Theotokos,... more

St Gregory Palamas Seminar: International Research into the Philosophical and Theological Work of St Gregory Palamas.
Topic: Philokalia through the Philosophy and Theology of St Gregory Palamas.
Veroia (Holy Monastery of Theotokos, Kallipetra, Rachi- Rachia- Veroias), Greece: 2-4 July 2021

- by Andreas P . Zachariou
- •
- Hermeneutics, Maximus the Confessor, Palamism, Patristic Exegesis
- by Paul Ladouceur
- •
- Orthodox Theology, John Zizioulas, Personalism, Palamism

The theological formulation of the “eternal manifestation of the Spirit through the Son”, developed by the patriarch of Constantinople Gregory of Cyprus in the 13th century, has been the subject of numerous studies in the 20th century and played an important role in the renewal of Trinitarian Orthodox theology. The interpretations are however diverging. Most theologians see in this formulation the manifestation of the uncreated energy, which would have been formalized later by Gregory Palamas. Others understand it as a hypostatic reality concerning the third Person of the Trinity. This paper contributes to the discussion by re-analyzing the main texts of Gregory of Cyprus and of Gregory Palamas on this matter. In a first step, we defend the thesis that in the thought of the Byzantine patriarch, this expression truly concerns the hypostasis of the Spirit. In a second step, we question the existence of the theme of an “eternal manifestation” of the uncreated energy in the work of Gregory Palamas.

David Bradshaw's impressive study in Palamism: "Aristotle East and West" resulted in a supplementary study in 2013 ("Divine Essence and Divine Energies). Here we critique and offer friendly challenges to doctors: Athanasopoulos, Levy, Loudovikos, Milbank and Bradshaw.
Bradshaw's original book presents a "provisional" history of the essence-energies distinction in East and West. His most recent contribution (2013) seeks to solidify this provisional history...but perhaps you did not know...
(1.) The History of the Reception of Augustine is colored through the lens of the Damascene in Bonaventure and post-Palamas Orthodox theologians;
(2.) Bonaventure and Scotus cite the same sources as Gregory Palamas in their essence-energies distinction (Nazianzen, Maximus, Damascene); hence, a proto-Orthodox and proto-Palamite metaphysics follow;
(3.) 4 Thomists at the Council of Ferrara-Florence called for the Synod to condemn Palamas;
(4.) 16-18th century thomistic theology also condemned Palamism;
(5.) Mark of Ephesus took Palamism and combined it with Augustine in a manner parallel to Bonaventure and Scotus;
(6.) For that reason, it is no surprise that Mark of Ephesus' successor, Gennadius Scholarius, cites explicitly Bonaventure and scotistic theologians with approval.
(7.) Current Byzantine and Latin "histories" of the essence-energy distinction are nowhere near complete in light of Franciscan theology, which happened to agree with Palamas at Ferrara (1437).
CONCLUSION: Should our thesis prove convincing, it will serve to call into question a good deal of historical theology on the question of the Palamite school and its relation to Latin theology until present. Furthermore, we desire to underline legitimately established Latin theologies that are far more reconcilable to Palamism than Thomism.

- by Christiaan Kappes and +1
- •
- Late Antique and Byzantine History, Radical Orthodoxy (Theology), Orthodox Theology, Aquinas

Vladimir Lossky (1903–58) and Sergii Bulgakov (1871–1944) are normally taken as polar opposites in modern Orthodox theology. Lossky's theology is portrayed as being based on a close exegesis of the Greek Fathers with an emphasis on theosis, the Trinity and the apophatic way of mystical union with God. Bulgakov's ‘sophiology’, in contrast, if it is remembered at all, is said to be a theology which wished to ‘go beyond the Fathers’, was based on German Idealism and the quasi-pantheist and gnostic idea of ‘sophia’ which is a form of the ‘Eternal Feminine’ of Romanticism. In short, Lossky's theological approach is what people normally think of when they speak of Orthodox theology: a form of ‘neo-patristic synthesis’ (Georges Florovsky). Bulgakov's theological approach is said to be typical of the exotic dead end of the inter-war émigré ‘Paris School’ (Alexander Schmemann) or ‘Russian Religious Renaissance’ (Nicolas Zernov). Lossky, we are reminded, was instrumental in the 1935 condemnation, by Metropolitan Sergii Stragorodskii of the Moscow Patriarchate, of Bulgakov's theology as ‘alien’ to the Orthodox Christian faith. Counter to this widely held ‘standard narrative’ of contemporary Orthodox theology, the article argues that the origins of Vladimir Lossky's apophaticism, which he characterised as ‘antinomic theology’, are found within the theological methodology of the sophiology of Sergii Bulgakov: ‘antinomism’. By antinomism is understood that with any theological truth one has two equally necessary affirmations (thesis and antithesis) which are nevertheless logically contradictory. In the face of their conflict, we are forced to hold both thesis and antithesis together through faith. A detailed discussion of Lossky's apophaticism is followed by its comparison to Bulgakov's ‘sophiological antinomism’. Lossky at first appears to be masking the influence of Bulgakov and even goes so far as to read his own form of theological antinomism into the Fathers. Nevertheless, he may well have been consciously appropriating the ‘positive intuitions’ of Bulgakov's thought in order to ‘Orthodoxise’ a thinker he believed was in error but still regarded as the greatest Orthodox theologian of the twentieth century. Despite major differences between the two thinkers (e.g. differing understandings of reason, the use of philosophy and the uncreated/created distinction), it is suggested that Lossky and Bulgakov have more in common than normally is believed to be the case. A critical knowledge of Bulgakov's sophiology is said to be the ‘skeleton key’ for modern Orthodox theology which can help unlock its past, present and future.

- by Brandon Gallaher
- •
- Orthodox Theology, Trinity, Trinitarian Theology, Apophaticism

The theological polemics of the late-fourteenth century, which arose out of the confrontation between certain followers of Gregorios Palamas and the brothers Prochoros and Demetrios Kydones, found a certain echo in the fifteenth century. Anti-Palamite figures, such as Manuel Kalekas, continued to evoke Palamite reactions in the decades prior to the Council of Ferrara-Florence. During the council conflicts arose between followers of Palamas’s teachings and certain Dominicans who were opposed to Palamas. In the aftermath, Georgios-Gennadios Scholarios commented on works of Thomas Aquinas in order to adjudicate the matter and argue for the orthodoxy of the Palamite position on the essence and energies of God. Scholarios can, in a number of senses, be classed a Thomistic thinker but he parted ways with Aquinas on the dogmatic question of the essence and energies. Instead, after Scholarios began to reconsider his pro-unionism at the Council of Ferrara-Florence, he turned to a number of other Scholastic sources in order recast Aquinas’s work into a Scotistic mold. For this reason he interpolated portions of Aquinas’s philosophical work De ente et essentia with a number of excerpts emanating from Franciscan theologians. These selections were designed to argue for a quasi-real or robust formal distinction in accord with the developments of the Scotist, François Meyronnes. While Scholarios had early in life benefitted from a Palamite formation and returned to this intellectual tradition by allying with Markos Eugenikos some years after the Council of Ferrara-Florence, Scholarios nonetheless remained greatly attached to Scholastic learning, especially Aquinas. Nevertheless, Scholarios admitted that the philosophical underpinnings of Aquinas’s metaphysics of God were theologically opposed to official Orthodoxy. As a result, Scholarios wrote additional treatises in philosophical theology that can be designated as scholastic and speculative. These original works were designed to justify Palamism in scholastic terms that would have been understood as an endorsement of Scotus’s theology of God among Renaissance Latin theologians of the scholae. Scholarios has historically been received and celebrated in the Greek Orthodox Church as one of its premier theologians since his death. Scholarios’s penchant for Thomism made him an attractive figure for Neo-Thomism, particularly the figures of Martin Jugie and Sebastian Guichardan. However, these apologetic theologians of the twentieth century were not totally accurate in their assessment of Scholarios’s theology of God. In addition to uncovering new sources for Scholarios’s works and to filling in biographical lacunae in Scholarios’s biography, this work also evaluates and critiques some of Jugie’s and Guichardan’s work as either insufficient or mistaken with respect to the question of the essence-energies question in Scholarios.

- by Christiaan Kappes
- •
- Orthodox Theology, Aquinas, Palamas, Thomas Aquinas

This study highlights more unusual cases where Byzantine liturgical sources, such as in
the Menaion and homiletic material of Fathers, are essential to understand certain notions of Palamas’ theoptic and epoptic ideas. The vocabulary and central themes of divine vision and participation in the divine energies are often found in Byzantine hymnody describing such experiences of divine light by the apostles and other saints. In some cases, Palamas’ formulations are closest to literature of a liturgical vs. dogmatic character. Furthermore, certain Palamite values, such as the presumed infallibility of patristic axioms (e.g., Basil the Great’s teaching on the Holy Spirit) build on liturgical assertions of the saint’s authority in doctrinal matters. Palamas’ combination of liturgical sources for his logical arguments on behalf of the apodeictic syllogism within an Aristotelian typology will be explored. This will lead to the conclusion that Palamas was very much influenced by contemporary Scholastic views and opinions on theology as a science and on the nature of the beatific vision. However, his own theory combined a natural epistemological skepticism with a divine illumination theory that distinguishes him from both Medieval Latin and Barlaamian positions on the scientific status of theology.

Certain Byzantine logicians exercised enormous influence in the Orthodox East and were popular enough in the Latin West to merit fifteenth- and sixteenth-century printings. One such polymath was George-Gennadios Scholarios. Trained in the Byzantine scholiast tradition, Scholarios learned Latin and, as an autodidact, subsequently mastered Dominican, Scotist, and modista logical and metaphysical literature. Scholarios’s eclecticism in philosophy was later pressed into the service of religion when he became an Orthodox monk and Patriarch of Constantinople. Scholarios used Bonaventure of Bagnoregio, John Duns Scotus, Hervaeus Natalis and Francis Meyronnes in defense of official Orthodoxy on the question of God’s essence as distinct from his attributes. Hervaeus’s theory of first and second intentions was fundamental for Scholarios to speculate on the distinctiones in divinis.

- by Christiaan Kappes
- •
- Aquinas, Medieval logic, Thomas Aquinas, Duns Scotus

This invited paper (soon to be reviewed) proves that Eucharistic transubstantiation is simply a Greek-patristic term developed out of ancient Eucharistic catechesis of Cyril of Jerusalem by Leontios of Jerusalem (c. 538). The terminology and theory developed into an advanced theory of substance-to-substance change and was thereafter neglected in extant Byzantine discussions until George-Gennadios Scholarios revivified the discussion occasioned by his preparation for the Eucharistic debates at Ferrara-Florence. "Transubstantiation" is a Greek and entirely "Eastern" Orthodox term that enjoys a fully historical and patristic pedigree before the terms invention in the Latin Medieval period around 1140 AD.

- by Christiaan Kappes
- •
- Transubstantiation, Eucharist, Sacramental Theology, Eucharistic Theology

This paper utilizes new discoveries of Mark Eugenikos' sources for aspects of his Palamism, as welll as other Palamite discoveries, to provide a working definition of Orthodox and Byzantine theology in light the Palamite theological synthesis. Because of the "Pillars of Orthodoxy" use of Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, and Bernard of Clairvaux, Orthodox theology must distinguish between the "use," "abuse," "toleration," and "approval" of Latin authorities.

- by Christiaan Kappes
- •
- Medieval Theology, Orthodox Theology, Byzantine Studies, Augustine

This proof will soon be published with the following arguments:
Brand-new discoveries on the Immaculate Conception:
(1.) The systematic defense thereof in Augustinian metaphor by Palamas and the Byzantine notion of prepurification.
(2.) The wholesale adoption of of Augustine's ideas of original sin in Palamism, from in utero "liability" for Adam's Sin to original sin as an infection perpetuated by reproduction.
(3.) Suggestions that Augustine is opposite in mentality to the current readings in academic literature:
(a.) Augustine never used/implied fetal guilt, though he looked at the fetus as meriting a certain "legal" and civil disadvantage parallel to a "reatus" who is under trial to be declared guilty under Roman Law.
(b.) Augustine was received in the patristic tradition as if he carried on Ambrose's implications of "fetal guilt" (= Roman law's legal sentence of personal responsibility under the law).
(c.) Only the Greek translation of Augustine by Planudes in the 1200s introduced "guilt" into Augustine's language. This imitated the "guilty" reception of Augustine in the West (Leo I) -perhaps not as legally savvy as the doctor gratiae?
(4.) Nicholas Cabasilas is caught citing in Greek the maculist S.Th. III.27.3. He explicitly turned the arguments on their head and argued opposite conclusion via Aquinas' same premises stemming from prepurification (Damascene, De fid. Orthod., III.2) and Ps.-Dionysian (bk. VI) purification of angels by knowledge.
(5.) If Scholarius outlined his approach to arguments in a scotistic modality, he only used the (Greek) language and metaphors of Augustine and Aquinas (graecus & graecus) to propose a prepurified-thomistic solution to the immaculate conception and against her infection with "fetal guilt" by synthesizing Damascene, Palamas, Cabasilas, Symeon of Thessalonica, & Macarius Makres with their own sources of Augustine and (in some cases) Aquinas

- by Christiaan Kappes
- •
- Aquinas, Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, Augustine of Hippo
- by Dmitry Biriukov
- •
- Patristics, Universals, Maximus the Confessor, Neoplatonism
- by Christopher Iacovetti
- •
- Ontology, Theology, Patristics, Systematic Theology
- by Dmitry I Makarov
- •
- Byzantine Studies, Dogmatic theology, Soteriology, Byzantine Philosophy

A new periodization of the thirteenth-century Byzantine theology is proposed. The impact of Gregory Palamas’ thirteenth-century predecessors upon the doctrine of essence and energies in God is analyzed, special attention being given to the increasing role of the notion of interpenetration in Moschambar, Blemmydes, Gregory of Cyprus. In the second part of the paper Hesychast, apocryphal and Aristotelian motives are uncovered in Blemmydes’ treatise On Virtue and Ascesis (ca. 1265–1266).
The article is based on my Belgrade report read in 2016 during the 23rd International Congress of Byzantine Studies.

- by Dmitry I Makarov and +1
- •
- Patristics, Historical Theology, Byzantine Studies, Doctrine of God

The article deals with a little studied and partially published corpus of the Chapters composed by Kallistos Angelikoudes, one of the most interesting and enigmatic authors of late Byzantium. The article attempts, for the first time, to trace the relationship between the three surviving collections of the Chapters and makes preliminary observations about the provenance of these three collections. The article also discusses the distinct features of the language of Kallistos, another topic which, so far, has been insufficiently studied. Finally, the article reviews the main themes of Chapters’ theology, attempting to locate them within the intellectual context of the middle and late fourteenth century, also known as the period of the Palamite controversy. The study pays special attention to Kallistos Angelikoudes’ teaching about God’s energies, as it appears in the Chapters, and its place among Palamite teaching of the time.

Ульянов О.Г. Богословие образа в исихазме (византийский паламизм и его новейшие интерпретации) // Международная научно-богословская конференция «Православное богословие: традиции и современность» (при поддержке Учебного комитета Русской... more

One side of the theological thought of hieroschemamonk Anthony (Bulatovitch, † 1919) is reviewed, namely, his teaching on the divine energy. Fr Anthony was the leader of the Athonite onomatodoxes in the 1910s; his works remain so far mostly unstudied. The teaching of the onomatodoxes on the name of God as a divine revelation of God and the divine energy was going back to the teaching of St Gregory Palamas on the divine energy of God. Thus, Fr Anthony develops, taking evidence from the Holy Scripture and the hymnography, a doctrine on the tri-unity of the energy of the Holy Trinity as the unique energy of the three Persons and the unique God. This doctrine remains strictly within the frame of the eastern patristic tradition, which was, however, almost forgotten in the official ecclesiastical education and textbooks of the contemporary Russian Church.

The article is the first part of our study concerning some possible repercussions
and influences between the sixth-century thinker Leontius of Byzantium, in whose writings a complex logical, theological and philosophical apparatus for solving dogmatic controversies was being formed, on the one hand, and proto-Palamite
and proto-anti-Palamite (Latinophile) thought of the thirteenth- and fourteenth-century
Byzantium, on the other. Although one cannot say about Leontius’ direct influence upon the representatives of the both hostile camps (resp., Theophanes of Nicaea and John XI Veccus), we can still discern some links in the logical chain of continuity between their ideas and Leontius’. These links include: a typology of «vertical»
and «horizontal» Divine — human relations in Leontius and Theophanes (this is an example of Leontius’ ideas being possibly positively received and appropriated by Theophanes); but on the other side we see an almost complete setback from Leontius’ ideas and heritage in the chaotic dogmatic system by Veccus, although some limited number of Leontius’ categories might have been used by John. We make the case study of Veccus’ On the Union Between the Churches of the Old and the New Rome in which text we single out and analyze the 34 points of thought in which the Latinophile patriarch dissociated himself from both the Orthodox dogmatics and Byzantine philosophy in general. As the main trait of Veccus’ doctrine which had been criticized earlier by Leontius we call tritheism. Indeed this is a continuation of all our previous research, especially on Veccus and Greek-Latin polemics.

Eastern Theological Journal 1 (2015) 2 Full text

- by Tamás Véghseő and +1
- •
- Theology, Patristics, Augustine, Syriac Studies
- by Paul Gavrilyuk
- •
- Patristics, Historical Theology, Systematic Theology, Pseudo-Dionysius

We single out a type of set-theoretical paradoxes, following the famous
Bertrand Russell scheme which was recently spotlit by Graham Priest. It is the
formula of “prohibited words” from Dino Buzzati’s 1958 short story bearing
the same name. We show up that the not less famous Palamite distinction
between the Divine essence and energy satisfi es the formula conditions, the
same being true for its correspondence with the Russell scheme. Seen from
the set-theoretical viewpoint, the Palamite prohibition to name the Divine
essence is structurally isomorphic to the “prohibited words” depicted by the
great Italian postmodernist writer. Hereby the set of Divine names stemming
from His energies corresponds in Palamism to the domain of “normal” words
in Buzzati, i.e., of those words, expressions, and idioms which are made use
of in the ordinary language.

- by Dmitry I Makarov
- •
- Set Theory, Logic, Byzantine Studies, Postmodernism
- by Paul Gavrilyuk
- •
- Plato, Aristotle, Neoplatonism and late antique philosophy, Aquinas
- by Antoine Levy
- •
- Russian Studies, Medieval Studies, Russian History, Palamism
- by Dmitry Biriukov
- •
- Patristics, Palamism, Nicephoros Gregoras

ETJ is published twice a year by
the St Athanasius Greek-Catholic Theological Institute

- by Tamás Véghseő
- •
- Theology, Byzantine Studies, Augustine, Syriac Studies
- by Dmitry Biriukov
- •
- Palamism, Divine names, Divine Essence and Energies

Giannis Demetracopoulos (born 1968) is a modern Greek historian of philosophy, an author of series of researches on Byzantine and Modern Greek philosophy. He is a head of the international project “Thomas de Aquino Byzantinus”, a member of the International society for Medieval philosophy studies in the section of Byzantine philosophy. The present article is a foreword to the translation of his work “Is Gregory Palamas an existentialist? The restoration of the true meaning of his comment on Exodus 3:14 “Ἐγώ εἰμι ὁ ὤν””, which was published in 1996 in Athens by “Παρουσία” editorial as a separate monograph. The article explains the reasons for actuality of this translation into Russian and provides information on life and studies of the author. The main part of the foreword is an analytic review of further writings by J. Demetracopoulos on the problems of “Byzantine Palamism”, written by him in 1996-2011. The methodology, which the scholar applies in the studies of Palamism, is discussed in the paper, as well as the conceptual contribution he brought into examination and interpretation of heritage both of Gregory Palamas himself and subsequent Byzantine and Modern Greek authors having participated in the post-Palamite discussions. A detailed description is given of the sources of philosophical and theological views of Gregory Palamas, which have been introduced into scholarly circulation by J. Demetracopoulos, aiding to clarification of the evolution of the Byzantine saint’s views and to better understanding his position in discussions with his opponents. Serious attention is paid to Demetracopoulos’ works on the relation of Gregory Palamas to the legacy of St. Augustine and his reception of the philosophical and theological views of the latter. Additionally, in the article a brief criticism of some Demetracopoulos’ statements on the issue of “transformation of Palamism” in the late Byzantium is contained.

- by Diodor Larionov
- •
- Byzantine Philosophy, Palamism, Existentialism, Gregory Palamas

I review the central propositions of Neilos Kabasilas's Rule of Theology and analyze the prehistory of a particular theme of vital importance for the treatise's wider theological tradition: the distinction between the warmth and light of fire (the sun) in Palamite theology. This analogy meant to clarify the distinction between the divine essence and energies, as well as between the energies themselves.

- by Dmitry Biriukov
- •
- Patristics, Philosophical Theology, Byzantine Studies, Individual Differences

The A. examines the issue of the distinction of the possessor and the possessed in God, which was raised in the discussion of 1355 between St. Gregory Palamas and Nicephorus Grigoras. The A. shows that the theologians of the IV century, being very cautious in their choice of philosophical concepts, used the opposition of “essence” and “inherentness” in God, which subsequently found continuation in the doctrine of divine energies. In the meantime, Western thinkers, beginning with blessed Augustine, did not accept this opposition, which ultimately led to a clash between the Byzantine Thomists and the Palamites. The article shows, in particular, that St. Gregory Palamas, along with the categories of “essence” and “attribution”, also uses the categories of “action” and “possession”, which allow him to speak about the difference
between possessor and the possessed in God. His opponents, on the contrary, considered such a distinction inadmissible, which for the most part is due to the influence of ancient metaphysics, primarily Neoplatonism, and is very problematic from the philosophical point of view.

- by Alexey Gaginsky
- •
- Palamism, Gregory Palamas, Byzantine Theology, Nicephoros Gregoras

This article deals with the ontological background of the discussion about divine energies in the 14th century. Specifi cally, since the concept of being was reduced to the essence, the status of energy became unclear, for the anousios energeia cannot be regarded as existing. The article shows that the existential dimension of the concept of energy, developed by Aristotle, in the era of Christological controversies recedes to the background, and the conceptual apparatus of ontology becomes so narrow that it seeks to eliminate everything that does not fi t into the framework of the opposition “essence vs. accidents” (ousia vs. sumbebekos). The article also demonstrates that this circumstance is a philosophical base of the Palamitic disputes and their most important theoretical prerequisite. In the relevant scientifi c literature, these disputes are viewed from the theological point of view; the motivation of anti-Palamites therefore remains unclear. Presumably, it might have happened that for their personal reasons, they did not accept, for example, hesychastic practices, whereas they were urged to deny the concept of energies by their own “mental ontology”.

- by Alexey Gaginsky
- •
- Ontology, Patristics, Byzantine Philosophy, Palamism

Relying on Demetrios Kydones´ translations of Aquinas´ works, a number
of so-called "Byzantine Thomists" claimed that reading the Fathers
according to Gregory Palamas´ real distinction between divine Ousia
and Energeiai was mistaken. This led the disciples of Palamas to reject
Aquinas in order to safeguard their own reading of the Fathers. But
does upholding the faithfulness of Aquinas to the Greek Fathers necessarily exclude an identical faithfulness on Palamas´ side? If it does not, how should we then account for the difference between the two approaches to the same literary and theological legacy? There is a difference between a text in its original version and the result of its retro-version. To the extent in which Kydones was attempting to re-interpret Aquinas´
interpretation of the Fathers in a Greek key, his work came to reflect
the understanding of the Greek tradition that developed in the Latin
world of the 13th century. As I examine the metaphysical tenets of
Aquinas´ interpretation of the Fathers in the light of 13th century´s
cosmological debates, I will argue that the shaping of a Western
hermeneutics of Greek Patristic tradition explains the tense encounter
between the two approaches- the Byzantine "original" one and the Latin
"translative" one- in the following century.

- by Antoine Levy
- •
- Thomism, Palamism, History of Medieval Philosophy
- by Dmitry I Makarov
- •
- Palamism, Hesychasm, Byzantine Theology, Greek Patristics

ABSRTACT of the Author [for the Russian edition]: As has been noticed long ago by J. Romanides, J. Meyendorff’s interpretation of Gregory Palamas’ comment on Ex. 3:14 in his Triads, which has been reproduced by a large number of Orthodox theologians even after, is erroneous. Expressly developing Romanides’ view, the author argues that, in fact, Meyendorff anachronistically attributes to Palamas the 20th c. existentialist concept of the ontological or deontological priority of ‘person’ to ‘essence’ with regard to his doctrine of the unity and triunity of God. A similar notion, Neoplatonic in origins and succinctly expressed by the phrases ἑαυτὸν παράγειν and ἑαυτὸν ποιεῖν and the terms αὐτοπάρακτος and αὐτοπάτωρ (Plotinus Enneads II.9, V.1, VI.8), is attributed, as a grave theological error, by Palamas to his bitter enemy, Nikephoros Gregoras. What Palamas truly stated (by elaborating a relevant passage from Ps.-Dionysius Areopagite’s De divinis nominibus V.4) was simply that the divine ‘energy’ that was called in the peculiarly Areopagitic way ‘ousia’, i. e. God’s ‘essence-producing activity’ (οὐσιοποιὸς ἐνέργεια), springs from God’s ‘essence’. An exploration into the heathen and Christian Neoplatonic and Byzantine history of this terminology shows that, in the last resort, what Palamas said bordered even on the traditional grammatical-logical doctrine that οὐσία is a παρώνυμον from εἶναι.

- by Diodor Larionov
- •
- Palamism, Existentialism, Gregory Palamas, Divine Essence
- by Michael Philliber
- •
- Theology, Systematic Theology, Russian Orthodox Church, Mount Athos Studies

Published in St Petersburg: Oleg Abyshko Publishing House, 2003. 544 pp. It is a complex investigation of all the verges of the world outlook of the great Hesychast doctor, such as cosmology, anthropology, the teaching on virtues and passions, on the mysteries of the Church, and on the deification. It also contains an analysis of Palamas' social sympathies and political views, as well as of his literary style as reflected in the homilies. This was done for the first time in the world Byzantine studies, with reference to the previous analyses of John Meyendorff, George Mantzarides, Robert Sinkewicz et al.

- by Parrésia. Revue Křesťanství and +1
- •
- Soteriology, Ascetical Theology, Byzantine Philosophy, Palamism

The main "heroes" of the paper are St. Gregory of Cyprus (1283 - 1289), Barlaam the Calabrian, Theophanes of Nicaea, David Disypatos, Aristotle, and St. Gregory of Nyssa, and the different aspects of their epistemology and philosophical... more

The article dedicated to features of the cosmographical views of St. Gregory Palamas. The matter is the fact that the Archbishop, relying on the concept isomoiria shifts the center of the sphere of water to the surface of the sphere land immersed in it. Thus, Palamas formed a peculiar picture of the world in which the land is only 1/10 peeking out of the water, leading to a denial of the presence of land anywhere outside the ecumene.

- by Illya Bey
- •
- Byzantine Studies, Palamism, Gregory Palamas, St Gregory Palamas

In this paper, we will make clear the contribution of the Palamite theology to Church's teaching on creation, through the systematic approach of Palamitic and Anti-Palamitic arguments for the Essence-Energies distinctions in God. In particular, we will discuss the distinction between "the work of Divine nature" (έργον Φύσεως) and "the work of Divine will" (έργον Θελήσεως) in Intra and Extra Trinitarian theology and the compromising theory of the "miidle energy" (Μέση ενέργεια) at the last phase of the Controversy.

The article is dedicated to the problem of a continuity in ideas between Mathew
Blastares’ Against the Errors of the Latins (between 1335 and 1341), on the one hand,
and the Greek patristic tradition, on the other. A quotation from St. Photius’ Mystagogy
of the Holy Spirit, which was left unnoticed by the editor, is singled out in the text of
Blastares’ treatise. The problem of a continuity of Blastares’ triadological ideas with those
of St. Nicholas of Methone (12th century), of Nicephorus Blemmydes and of St. Gregory
of Cyprus (13th century) is given a special treatment.

- by Dmitry I Makarov
- •
- Byzantine Literature, Byzantine Studies, Dogmatic theology, Byzantine Philosophy
- by Dmitry I Makarov
- •
- Anthropology, Byzantine Studies, Doctrine of God, Dogmatic theology

We single out a type of set-theoretical paradoxes, following the famous Bertrand Russell scheme which was recently spotlit by Graham Priest. It is the formula of “prohibited words” from Dino Buzzati’s 1958 short story bearing the same name. We show up that the not less famous Palamite distinction between the Divine essence and energy satisfi es the formula conditions, the same being true for its correspondence with the Russell scheme. Seen from the set-theoretical viewpoint, the Palamite prohibition to name the Divine essence is structurally isomorphic to the “prohibited words” depicted by the great Italian postmodernist writer. Hereby the set of Divine names stemming from His energies corresponds in Palamism to the domain of “normal” words in Buzzati, i.e., of those words, expressions, and idioms which are made use of in the ordinary language.

- by Dmitry I Makarov
- •
- Set Theory, Philosophy, Logic, Byzantine Studies