Saint Gregory Palamas — Defender of Hesychasm

-By John Raspopin From apostolic times, the Christian Church has periodically faced the question of the interaction and relationship between Divine Revelation and Greek philosophy, which for much of human history served as the foundation for understanding the world and defining the human self. This question has, from the outset, led Christians to disagreement and conflict. This tension became a driving force in intellectual life for many centuries. The two distinct foundations of worldview—Christian and philosophical—were so closely intertwined that not everyone could properly distinguish the wheat from the chaff. Many theses of Aristotle, Plato, Plotinus, and the Stoics resembled core Christian dogmas. During the period of formulating Orthodox doctrine, the temptation to draw on the works of ancient philosophers was particularly strong. Converts raised in pagan traditions often brought with them the philosophical knowledge acquired in their former beliefs. Improper spiritual disposition and false mystical experiences contributed to a blending of Christian truths with the postulates of ancient sages. At times, philosophically educated converts were unwilling to fundamentally alter their established worldview and superimposed Christian principles onto it, again without the proper mystical disposition. This gave rise to various heresies and speculative teachings within the Church. By the end of the Byzantine period, on the eve of the Western Renaissance, the Eastern Church faced a significant temptation to pay particular attention to its ancient heritage. Throughout the history of Orthodox Byzantium, Greek philosophy was studied but considered a rather dangerous pursuit. For instance, a great pillar of the Church like Basil the Great even recommended classical Greek education for young people. Examining his works, one can observe his skillful use of philosophical formulations to articulate Orthodox doctrine. In Redacted to protect the privacy of individuals involved. In the late Byzantine period, this tradition was continued by figures such as Patriarch Photius, Michael Psellos, and John Italos. Gradually, the boundary between theology and philosophy became increasingly blurred, and due to this trend, from the beginning of the second millennium, “the Greek philosophers were elevated to the same rank as Moses and the prophets, and this tendency later grew to such an extent that Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, and other sages found a place in the icon_languages of the Greek Church” [9, p. 121]. However, this only deepened and exacerbated the conflict. In the 13th–14th centuries, renewed cultural contacts between Byzantium and the West brought a flood of scholastic literature and ideas to the East. Eastern intellectuals “discovered, to their surprise, that Western thinkers were not only familiar with Aristotle and Greek philosophy but also successfully integrated them with Christianity” [3, p. 332]. Examples include Thomas Aquinas, Anselm, and others. Following the emerging humanism, Catholic theologians deemed it necessary to find a common ground between theology and philosophy. The Church found itself in the position of the accused, striving to justify its existence from a philosophical standpoint. The artificial blending of Christianity and ancient philosophy, without regard for spiritual experience, led to the emergence of a surrogate known as scholasticism. Upon learning of this vast cultural layer of Western civilization, some Byzantine intellectuals became enamored with it, and some even moved to the West, converting to Catholicism. However, the flow of such “Latin-minded” individuals was not unidirectional. People driven by the idea of spreading these “hybrid” ideas also came to the East. One of the most gifted heralds of the Renaissance in the East was Barlaam of Calabria. Barlaam (1290–1348) was an Orthodox monk, Greek by nationality, but born in the city of Seminara in Calabria, a region in southern Italy with ancient Greek settlements. Barlaam was exceptionally well-educated. His native language was Greek, but he was deeply familiar with the Latin theological thought of his time and an expert in Euclid, Aristotle, Plato, and Ptolemy. Thus, this highly educated monk was a bearer of both Western and Eastern cultures. As an Orthodox Christian, ostensibly out of devotion to the true faith, Barlaam arrived in Constantinople from Italy in 1330. His presence was immediately in demand at the emperor’s court. For a Byzantium weakening by the day in its struggle against the advancing Ottoman Turks, the political and military support of the papal throne was vital. This required, first and foremost, negotiations on ecclesiastical matters. Barlaam’s scholarly persona was ideally suited for the role of a diplomat in such affairs at the court of Emperor Andronikos III. He was promptly appointed abbot of the capital’s Monastery of the Savior and received the title of didaskalos of theology. On one hand, Barlaam’s activity during his time in Constantinople was marked by several anti-Latin treatises in which he condemned, among other things, the Latin filioque. On the other hand, in these treatises, the Calabrian monk adopted a very particular theological stance: “Since God is mysterious and unknowable, the claims of Catholic theologians to convincingly prove the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Son, or to prove anything at all, are futile; in matters of faith, nothing can be proven by reason” [1, p. 351]. This was his tactical approach. From the impossibility of rationally knowing divine mysteries, he sought to deduce the secondary nature of all dogmas. With this foundation for uniting the Western and Eastern Churches, Barlaam traveled in 1339 to Avignon to meet Pope Benedict XII. The pope rejected this religious relativism and proposed the sole condition for union—subordination of the East to the Western Church. The embassy achieved nothing. However, the pope was not the only one to condemn Barlaam’s concept. In Constantinople, his anti-Latin treatises found neither understanding nor approval. A powerful monastic faction was outraged by the unorthodox nature of these treatises and, though initially restrained, expressed its disagreement. The leader and inspiration of this faction was Saint Gregory Palamas, the “foremost leader of Athonite hesychasm, who defined the dogmatic foundation of the sacred Orthodox Church” [10, p. 40]. Saint Gregory Palamas (1296–1359) was born into the family of Byzantine senator Constantine Palamas, a rather distinguished lineage. Gregory grew up as the eldest son in this large, pious Orthodox family. He was raised alongside the son of the Byzantine emperor and, after his father’s death in 1303, was taken to live permanently at the imperial court. There, Palamas received an excellent secular education at the imperial university, where one of his teachers was the renowned Theodore Metochites. Gregory was being prepared for state service, and though he did not complete the full course of study, he became an excellent scholar of Aristotle. Palamas “possessed a high level of personal intellectual culture, but this by no means indicates that he was not a principled opponent of the cult of secular sciences… Patriarch Philotheus Kokkinos said that in his youth, Palamas engaged in rhetorical exercises and the study of secular wisdom so that such a lofty soul and strong nature would be familiar with the arrows and weapons of the opposing side… one must know the enemy’s weapons” [10, p. 113]. Gregory Palamas received his primary spiritual formation during his father’s lifetime. His soul was inclined toward monasticism from a young age, and when faced with a choice of life path, he took monastic vows at the age of twenty, following the advice of Theoliptos, Bishop of Philadelphia. Soon after, his brothers, sisters, mother, and even some household servants followed him into monasticism. Saint Gregory settled on Mount Athos, living for several years under the guidance of Elder Gregory. He later returned to Thessaloniki, where he was ordained a priest at the age of thirty, but soon retreated to the desert for five years. During this time, Saint Gregory lived in a hesychasterion (a place where the inhabitants practiced hesychia—solitary prayer). During this period of his second withdrawal to the monastery, around 1334, Saint Gregory began his literary activity. He wrote The Life of Saint Peter of Athos, A Discourse on the Entry of the Theotokos into the Temple, and Chapters on Prayer and Purity of Heart. To this same period belong his Apodictic Discourses on the Procession of the Holy Spirit, in which a subtle polemic against the anti-Latin works of Barlaam of Calabria was already present. Toward the end of his time on Mount Athos, Saint Gregory served as the abbot of the Esphigmenou Monastery. However, due to disagreements with the brethren over the strict monastic discipline he introduced, he was compelled to leave. From his early years, Gregory Palamas had absorbed the practice of noetic prayer from his father, who maintained constant hesychia even while serving as a senator. This explains the young Gregory’s inclination toward the ascetic monastic life, which he practiced throughout his life. He was particularly diligent in this during his monastic life, under the guidance of experienced mentors. It is suggested that “Palamas was likely close to Gregory of Sinai in his youth and may have formally been under his spiritual guidance” [11, p. 82]. One might expect that, as a hesychast, Gregory would have fully devoted himself to noetic prayer and silence. “Yet, in the ascetic focus of the hesychast, the external world was not abandoned to fate; within him occurred a spiritual accumulation that ultimately sustains the world, renews it in beauty, and enriches it in culture. From the unimaginable dignity to which the human heart ascends in communion with God came revelation about the world, responsibility for it, and theological and civic boldness” [1, p. 350]. So acted Saint Gregory. Foreseeing great turmoil in the Church, he returned to Thessaloniki, where he engaged in active preaching and literary work. As mentioned earlier, the 14th century was a fascinating period in Byzantine history. The weakened, bleeding, and agonizing empire, with its borders nearly at the suburbs of Constantinople, hardly constituted a political entity. Imperial authority carried little weight, as did patriarchal authority. Yet, in this most challenging period, a new surge of philosophical and theological thought emerged. Western humanistic ideas flooded Eastern culture, permeating all spheres of life. The notion of widespread “de-divinization” tested the resilience of all philosophical and theological principles, resulting in a serious clash between two poles. During this time, a heated polemic arose between Palamas and Barlaam on the public ecclesiastical stage. In those years, Gregory produced his principal work, the three Triads in Defense of the Holy Hesychasts. Barlaam not only dismissed the hesychastic experience and mocked it satirically but also accused the hesychasts of adhering to the Messalian heresy (whose adherents completely rejected the Church and its institutions, sacraments, and focused solely on personal prayer and ascetic feats). The accusation was utterly absurd, and “Saint Gregory condemned the heretical self-will of the Bogomils-Messalians, but he was indeed drawn to their enthusiasm for faith, deepened prayerfulness, and severity of life rules” [1, p. 349]. Having accused Saint Gregory of heresy, Barlaam rejected the mystical experience of the hesychasts as false and even convened a synod in June 1341, attended by the emperor, to denounce Gregory’s teaching on the uncreated nature of the Tabor Light. Barlaam argued that the Tabor Light seen by hesychasts was sensory, that constant practice of the Jesus Prayer aligned hesychasts with the Bogomil sectarians, and that the Jesus Prayer itself required clarification (allegedly, it did not emphasize the divinity of Jesus Christ). Summoned to the synod under disciplinary measures as an offender, Saint Gregory arrived from Thessaloniki accompanied by monks loyal to him. He brought with him the Hagioritic Tome, signed by all the abbots of Mount Athos. The Hagioritic Tome boldly affirmed the teaching on uncreated energies and expressed full support for Gregory from the Athonite monastic community. This turn of events quickly shifted the roles of Gregory and Barlaam at the synod, and as a result, Barlaam apologized and accepted Gregory’s view, acknowledging the Tabor Light as “eternal.” However, the next day, Barlaam of Calabria left for Italy, where he converted to Catholicism and became the bishop of Gerace. Saint Gregory was not satisfied with the synod’s confirmation of the “eternity” of the Tabor Light; he considered it uncreated. As soon as he spoke of this, he faced numerous opponents, chief among them his former friend Gregory Akindynos. The patriarch issued a special decree prohibiting anyone but bishops from theologizing about dogmas. Confident in his teaching, Saint Gregory disobeyed. He found support from the court minister John Kantakouzenos, one of the claimants to the imperial throne vacated after the death of Andronikos III. Kantakouzenos not only convened a synod in August 1341 (a right reserved for the emperor), which condemned Akindynos’s opposition and “rejected the claim that acknowledging the Tabor Light as uncreated leads to ditheism” [1, p. 362], but also drew Palamas into the political struggle of the ensuing civil war. Palamas faced persecution from Patriarch John Kalekas, but after Kantakouzenos’s ascension in 1347, Gregory was ordained bishop of Thessaloniki. As bishop, Gregory continued to defend his teaching. In 1351, a major Constantinopolitan Synod was convened, which issued a detailed resolution affirming and endorsing Palamas’s doctrine. In 1359, Saint Gregory reposed, and by 1368, he was canonized as a saint. Of particular interest is Saint Gregory’s defense of the mystical experience of the hesychasts, to which he undoubtedly belonged. He defended hesychasts primarily against the humanistic attacks of Barlaam of Calabria and, through him, the entire camp of enlightened modernists. The dispute between these two representatives of opposing intellectual currents began with a shared starting point. Both Gregory and Barlaam wrote anti-Latin works. As noted, Barlaam criticized Catholics from the perspective of God’s absolute transcendence, arguing the illegitimacy of defending any dogmas. Saint Gregory also wrote against the Latins but maintained that God is relatively knowable and that defending dogmas is possible, provided it is grounded in proper mystical experience. This was his initial, still veiled, critique of Barlaam. Upon learning of such audacity, Barlaam decided to investigate his opponent’s theological stance more closely. To this end, he traveled to Mount Athos to understand the essence of hesychasm but failed to grasp it. By that time, hesychasm was flourishing on Mount Athos. The term “hesychasm” has been known since the 4th century, denoting a state of inner peace and silence achieved by overcoming passions, enabling the monk to enter contemplation. Hesychasts were monastics who preferred solitary life for the practice of noetic prayer over the ascetic discipline of large monastic communities. The first great teacher of noetic prayer was Evagrius Ponticus in the 4th century, whose work On Prayer contains numerous recommendations for the practice of unceasing prayer. References to noetic prayer can also be found in the Macarian Corpus. In the 11th century, Symeon the New Theologian spoke of the direct experience of communion with God. However, hesychasm as a distinct movement is fully discussed only from the early 14th century, associated with the name of Gregory of Sinai. This saint moved from Crete to Mount Athos and began to promote his lofty understanding of the monastic calling and hesychia (Greek for “silence” or “stillness”). This prayer practice presupposed peace in the heart, tranquility of mind, liberation of the heart from thoughts and passions, detachment from the influence of the external world, and abiding in God. It was held that silence was the only path to deification, that bodily silence aided in achieving noetic silence, and that a hesychast was one who, through specific methods, strove to establish the mind in the heart. These methods included certain psychophysical techniques. It was these psychophysical techniques that Barlaam used to criticize hesychasm. In his view, he reduced the entire concept of Athonite hesychasm to bodily techniques. “They told me of a marvelous separation and reunion of mind and soul, of the soul’s connection with a demon, of the distinction between red and white light, of rational entries and exits through the nostrils during breathing, of barriers around the navel, and finally, of the soul’s vision of our Lord, which occurs palpably and with full heartfelt certainty within the navel” [quoted in 4, p. 337]. Thus, Barlaam attacked the most sacred aspect of hesychasm—the practice of contemplating the uncreated light—calling it sensory and a seductive vision of demons. It is clear that Barlaam encountered some aberrant manifestation of hesychia. Though he likely understood this, he nonetheless launched such an offensive satire, seeing hesychasm as an obstacle to his life’s mission of uniting the Western and Eastern Churches. Saint Gregory promptly responded with his first Triad in Defense of the Holy Hesychasts, in which he did not yet name Barlaam directly. The second Triad was written in response to Barlaam’s insistence that direct vision of the uncreated light was impossible. The third Triad was published after the 1341 synod, when Saint Gregory defended the uncreated nature of the Tabor Light. It is from the texts of these Triads that we glean both Barlaam’s claims (his original writings were destroyed after the June 1341 synod by patriarchal order) and the apologetic statements of Saint Gregory Palamas. The Triads of Saint Gregory reflect his opponent’s attacks along three main lines of thought. These three primary directions can be outlined as follows. First, the defense of theology itself and the affirmation of the possibility of direct knowledge of God. Second, Saint Gregory refuted Barlaam’s claims that the body cannot participate in mystical life, that such an experience is false, and that the hesychastic method of noetic prayer is invalid. Third, the justification of true contemplation of God through the vision of the Tabor Light. These three points became strategic in the development of Gregory Palamas’s dogmatic teaching. Barlaam, as a herald of the Renaissance, equated philosophy and theology, their methods, and their outcomes. “The divinely inspired Scripture with its wisdom and the philosophy of external sciences aim at the same goal and achieve the same thing: the discovery of truth, for truth is one in all things, as directly given by God to the apostles… Philosophical sciences also lead to it, helping to infallibly elevate the greatest sacred symbols to their immaterial archetypes” [1, p. 119]. From this, Barlaam concluded that, although it is entirely impossible for humans to know God, they can intellectually approach Him, free themselves from the material body, and attain a vision of God in an intellectual ecstasy. As Saint Gregory relayed Barlaam’s words, “they said that one cannot attain perfection and holiness without discovering true opinions about reality, and that one who seeks perfection and holiness must necessarily learn from external science the methods of discernment, reasoning, and analysis, and master them perfectly” [1, pp. 72–73]. It cannot be said that Gregory Palamas entirely rejected philosophy. “One should engage with it only to the extent necessary not to be deprived of what is valuable in it” [1, p. 130]. However, he did not regard philosophy as a means of knowing God. Drawing on the words of the Apostle Paul, “Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God. Which things also we speak, not in the words which man’s wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth; comparing spiritual things with spiritual” [1 Cor. 2:12–13], Saint Gregory affirmed that “not through reasonings, but by the presence of His Spirit in us do we know the things granted to us by God, which eye hath not seen, nor ear heard” [1, p. 140]. For, although philosophy is a natural gift from God, it was corrupted by the evil one, who turned God’s gift into folly. In Gregory Palamas’s view, philosophy and theology follow different paths, and their value is determined by their purpose. Philosophy is not essential to human life, whereas theology is vital. “Is not the truth of divine Scripture’s wisdom necessary, beneficial, and salvific for us, while the truth of external wisdom is neither necessary nor salvific?” [1, p. 120]. Another point from which Barlaam attacked the hesychasts was his particular anthropological teaching rooted in humanism. It should be noted that Barlaam, as a broadly educated individual, likely had some understanding of hesychasm from earlier Church Fathers. As an adherent of a Platonic-dualistic concept of humanity, he did not reject the principle of hesychasm itself but only those aspects that contradicted his philosophical framework. For him, spiritual life and perfection meant liberation from the oppression of the body and intellectual contemplation. Following Plato, who viewed the body as the soul’s prison and contemptible matter, Barlaam argued that one should “entirely mortify the passionate faculty of the soul, so that it exercises none of its powers, and cease all actions common to soul and body, for such actions hinder prayer” [1, p. 161]. “Love for actions common to the passionate faculty of the soul and the body binds the soul to the body and fills it with darkness” [1, p. 169]. The passionate faculty’s activity should be rejected, “for its action most of all blinds and darkens the divine eye” [1, p. 182]. Thus, he insisted that the material component of humanity, the body, could not participate in prayer or any spiritual endeavor. Barlaam even cited Saint Maximus the Confessor, stating that “the highest state of prayer is when the mind, during prayer, is outside the flesh and the world, entirely immaterial and formless” [quoted in 6, p. 194]. Such selective quoting of the Fathers (Barlaam frequently cited Saint Dionysius the Areopagite) significantly unsettled the hesychasts. Although their spiritual experience left no doubt as to its truth, it lacked dogmatic articulation. Saint Gregory, who had spent many years on Mount Athos and fully embraced the entirety of hesychastic monastic asceticism, took it upon himself to provide such articulation, adapting non-Christian terms to express mystical truths. First, he opposed the Platonic notion of human dualism. He stated, “There are also blessed passions and such common actions of soul and body that do not bind the spirit to the flesh but elevate the flesh to spiritual dignity, drawing it upward with them” [1, p. 169]. These blessed passions include suffering for Christ, as evidenced by the relics of the saints, which show that a rightly ordered soul elevates the body to heaven. This also includes weeping for God and purifying tears. “These tears purify the one who weeps, detach him from the earth, elevate him to heaven, unite him with the grace of birth in God, and through it, deify him—are they not a common action of the body and the passionate faculty of the soul?” [1, p. 176]. “Such are the inexpressible actions we speak of, performed in the bodies of the holy hesychasts who have dedicated their entire lives to hesychia” [1, p. 170]. Second, if the cooperation of body and soul is disregarded, then “when approaching noetic prayer, one should not fast, keep vigil, or kneel… in general, do nothing, for all this causes painful effects on the sense of touch and, as the philosopher says, burdens the soul in prayer, whereas the soul must be made unburdened in every way” [1, p. 161]. The absurdity of such conclusions is evident. The opposite conclusion to Barlaam’s can be drawn: to commune with God, a person must not become disembodied but abandon sin and intellectual activity. “The body, bound to us, or rather subordinated to us by God, is meant to assist the soul; thus, we must reject a dissolute body but accept one that functions as it should” [1, p. 162]. In other words, there exists a synergy—a cooperation—between soul and body in the pursuit of knowing God. The passionate faculties of the soul must not be destroyed but transformed and sanctified. This is the highest purpose of hesychastic practice, meaning the body must also participate in prayer. Saint Gregory cites numerous Scriptural passages showing that the Spirit manifests through bodies, such as diverse tongues, interpretation of tongues, the gift of healing, and the laying on of hands. Reasoning logically in the Hagioritic Tome, he states: “He who calls impassibility the state of mortifying the passionate part of the soul, rather than its activity directed toward the better, by following such an opinion, also rejects the body’s existence in the incorruptible age to come” [2, p. 74]. Therefore, “dedicating themselves to God and communing with Him with an unclouded mind, they (the hesychasts), through this closeness, easily cast off the heap of evil passions and gather for themselves the treasure of love… In any case, the passionate faculty of the soul must be presented to God alive and active, that it may be a living sacrifice” [2, pp. 179–180]. Humanity is a whole being, with no division into primary and secondary parts; everything in it was created beautiful and “very good.” All of it must be restored to its original state, and the entire human composition must work toward and participate in this endeavor. “Only the whole human being can acquire grace, not one or another part—mind, soul, or body—taken separately. Hence the strict and constant admonitions of the hesychasts’ spiritual guides against bodily visions (purely bodily!) or imagined visions (purely imagined!), both of which are equally temptations of the devil, who seeks to destroy human unity, the unity that Christ came to restore, granting it immortality” [5, p. 105]. Humanist-Platonists, however, thought otherwise. Barlaam, reasoning consistently, rejected the method of prayer used by the hesychasts. He had no reliable knowledge of it. His understanding was limited to theoretical statements from Evagrius and Macarius and to practical examples of some aberrant form. Perceiving the hesychasts’ psychophysical techniques as the foundation of their tradition, Barlaam not only satirically called them “navel-souls,” alluding to their mention of the navel as a point of concentration, but also spoke of other strange phenomena related to the physical aspects of prayer. He found the system of breath control incomprehensible and “denounced the utter absurdity of forced inhalations.” Saint Gregory did not offer a categorical response to this. He acknowledged that Nicephorus, who described the psychophysical practice in detail, “perhaps wrote his work with simplicity and without artifice” [1, p. 160]. The description may indeed have been less than perfect, but “how far from the truth are those who, because of certain human imperfections, call the grace-filled men deluded, forgetting that only an angel, not a human, is given not to fall into sin” [1, p. 112]. It must be noted that all the hesychastic Fathers devoted very little space to describing psychophysical techniques. In reality, “for those who wish to belong to themselves as the inner man, it is essential to bring the mind into the body and hold it there. This is especially fitting to teach beginners… Since even a focused mind tends to wander in those just beginning their struggle… some advise closely monitoring inhalation and exhalation and slightly restraining the breath… For those advanced in hesychia, such things come effortlessly and without strain… And is it not useful for a monk striving to bring his mind within himself to develop the habit… as if on some support, of fixing his gaze on his chest or navel? By outwardly curling, as it were, into a circle, he also leads the mind’s power, through the body’s form, inward to the heart” [1, pp. 48–49]. This calm and non-categorical explanation addressed the visible aspect of hesychastic practice that greatly troubled the curious. For Saint Gregory, the mind is that part of the human composition capable of transcending itself and acquiring grace. Therefore, true prayer is “noetic.” “The prayer of the perfect is, above all, a noetic action: not directed toward the body, not operating through sensation or imagination, not clinging rationally or speculatively to the structure of reality, but focusing solely on prayer, the mind necessarily acts in prayer on its own” [1, p. 173]. The mind is the image of God in humanity, and it knows God. Yet, a person cannot be saved by their own efforts; “the mind requires grace and can acquire it only in the Body of Christ, united with our body through Baptism and Communion. To purify itself and fulfill its inherent activity—noetic prayer—the mind must ‘descend into the heart.’ The mind does not become bodily or directed toward the body; it remains incorporeal and turned toward God, but it once again fulfills the task set for it by God—to draw the entire human organism, body and soul, to its Creator” [6, p. 215]. Barlaam, however, claimed that the only object of contemplation for the saints could be, at most, the essence of the mind. Thus, in the anthropological aspect of the dispute, Barlaam was significantly outmatched by Saint Gregory due to his lack of a coherent, unified system. Saint Gregory’s reflections on prayer and defense of the hesychastic experience were not only grounded in his profound personal mystical experience but also aligned with the central theological theme of Christ Himself dwelling within us. How does Palamas envision this indwelling? “If the Son of God not only united His divine essence with our nature and, taking an animated body and a rational soul, appeared on earth and dwelt among men, but, mingling Himself through the Communion of His Holy Body with each of the faithful, He unites Himself with human existences, becoming one body with us and making us a temple of the entire Godhead, shall He not then illumine the souls of worthy communicants with the divine radiance of His Body within us, as He illumined the bodies of the disciples on Tabor?” [1, p. 100]. “This passage reveals why defending the hesychasts meant, in Saint Gregory’s eyes, defending the Gospel itself: for Barlaam’s nominalism called into question the very presence of Christ in the sacramental life of the Church” [6, p. 212]. From this passage also follows Saint Gregory’s defense of the concept of the uncreated nature of the Tabor Light, its role in the mystical practice of the hesychasts, and the deification of humanity. By articulating the Orthodox understanding of anthropology and casting aside the chaff of antiquity and humanism that clung to it, Saint Gregory, in essence, did not merely defend but explained to society the approaches of true spiritual practice. Repeatedly in his treatise, Gregory Palamas emphasized the experiential component in the hesychastic practice. The same applies to the concept of the Tabor Light. For hesychasts, the divine light was a reality, and they considered it identical to the Tabor Light. What the apostles saw on Tabor, every person practicing noetic prayer correctly could see. By purifying soul and body, establishing peace and tranquility within, and being liturgically grafted onto the Body of the Church, a monk could experience the action of God’s grace, which is abundantly bestowed upon all. This action was felt according to the readiness of the recipient. This Tabor Light is the light of the future kingdom, the light of God’s Kingdom on earth. This light is the means by which a person can know God. “If there be those who partake of God, and the superessential essence of God is utterly imparticipable, then there must be something between the imparticipable essence and those who partake, whereby they partake of God” [1, p. 326]. Saint Gregory drew his theology from personal experience and was able to articulate traditional issues of asceticism and theology in a new, uniquely his own manner. Although he supported all his statements with the writings of earlier Fathers, he cannot be considered merely a compiler of what was said before him. The tradition of “pure prayer” has always been the backbone of the Church’s strength. This tradition has, throughout all times, been the true measure of righteousness and God’s presence. It was not always called “hesychia,” but its sustaining power is evident even today. It was this tradition that fortified the martyrs, whose blood tempered the Church at its inception. This tradition created the precious treasury of monastic experience. This tradition enabled the Church to emerge unscathed from the upheavals of the Ecumenical Councils. This tradition allowed the Catholic Church to resist the temptations of the world and not follow the West. And “the hesychastic controversies of the 14th century, as we see, served as a stimulus for the Church to more fully articulate the Orthodox teaching on human deification, contributing to the theological grounding of humanity’s enlightenment by the Holy Spirit” [11, p. 81]. In the Russian Church, this tradition has always served as a bitter but indispensable medicine for self-purification. Even today, this tradition restrains the onslaught of worldly forces against Christ’s Church, enabling it to stand pure and unblemished. This tradition has not always found understanding or resonance with everyone. It offers a narrow gate. Yet, it is one of the possible ways to acquire the Holy Spirit. It is a reliable path for anyone desiring to return to their homeland. This tradition has never advertised itself, yet everyone knows of it. This tradition “possesses nothing, yet enriches all.” Protopresbyter John Meyendorff, an expert on Saint Gregory Palamas’s legacy, aptly characterized this tradition: “This spiritual experience of the hesychasts gains striking relevance precisely because of its fidelity to the biblical understanding of God and humanity, and due to the complete detachment of its piety, focused on the one and only reality: Jesus, the incarnate Son of God. Thus, it becomes evident that the unbroken tradition of hesychasm in the bosom of the Orthodox Church should not be seen as the absolutization of a particular school of spiritual practice, but as fidelity to the ‘one thing needful’ for all Christian life.” source