Protodeacon Michael offers some words on the 2nd Sunday of Great Lent, commemorating the works of St. Gregory Palamas
As the second Sunday of Great Lent, the church turns our focus on an event from the 14th century that continues to have a profound impact on our faith, and we commemorate today a warrior of Orthodoxy who stood up to the forces that would want to change our understanding of God from experiential to scholastic; from becoming one with God by experiencing Him in all the physical and spiritual elements, rather than strictly through rational understanding. That warrior of the faith whom we commemorate today is St. Gregory Palamas.
Today can also be called the “second triumph” of Orthodoxy over the elements within the church and empire that wanted to reduce our faith to a philosophy by trying to apply human logic to the worship of the eternal Divine. Last week we celebrated the victory of the iconodules—those people who supported the use of icons for prayer and worship—against the iconoclasts, who sought to eliminate the use of icons in both personal and communal piety back in the 8thcentury. In both cases, it was the lack of understanding of the spiritual aspects of the faith that caused the confusion and division among Christians.
St. Gregory Palamas is commemorated today because he fought against those people within the Church who wanted to focus heavily on the scholastic aspects of the faith. The tradition known as heyschism (silence/quietness)practiced in the Eastern monastic communities came under fire from the Western half of the Church. The practice involved silence and focused prayer. Many practitioners of heyschism believed that it was possible to partake in the uncreated light, the same phenomenon experienced by the disciples when Christ was transfigured on Mt. Tabor. This light was of a divine source and would illuminate but not burn the person encountering the miracle.
Around the year 1337, a learned monk from Calabria (Italy) named Barlaam challenged the validity and the practice of heyschism. Barlaam dismissed the claim of being able to experience the uncreated light through devotion to intense silence and prayer, and that the light was being worshiped as a god, making the practice of heyschism a polytheistic heresy, since there were now two divine beings, one visible and the other invisible. This would be in direct contradiction to the Christian belief in one God. Barlaam wrote treatises denouncing the heyschasts and sought to end their practice.
St. Gregory was asked by his fellow monks of Mt. Athos to defend the heyschast tradition before the synod at Constantinople. St. Gregory was able to explain that those practicing hesychasm were not worshiping a material god, but rather were participating in God’s energies. In his defense of heyschism, St. Gregory explained that it is possible for man to participate in God’s energy but not in His essence; we are unable to physically see or become God. Essentially: God is God, and we are not. We can never participate in God’s essence, since only the Son of God can do that. But by constant, meaningful prayer (such as the use of the “Jesus Prayer”) and other ascetical practices, it may be possible to experience God’s energy through the uncreated light. In 1341, Barlaam recanted and returned to Calabria. The subject of heyschism would continue to be debated until 1351 when it was Palamas' “Essence-Energies” distinction was established as the doctrine of the Orthodox Church, providing the basis for our understanding of ability to ultimately participate in the energies of God.
This distinction between God’s essence and energies that St. Gregory helped clarify is essential to understanding our relationship with God and our ability to relate directly with Him. By his defense of the heyschast tradition and the reality of the uncreated light, St. Gregory was able to demonstrate that the living God could be experienced in a very tangible way. God is not a distant deity Who can only be understood through academic pursuits. The Bible along with the traditions of the Church are more than just historical lessons; they provide valuable insight for deepening our relationship with God through His Son, Jesus Christ. Studying our faith is important; but it is more important to experience it.
Deepening our understanding of God is the purpose of Great Lent. The increased services, prayers, and prostrations, along with the fasting and almsgiving are intended to help us clear out the accumulated cobwebs of our souls, leaving a clean house suitable for a Holy God to dwell. All the activities prescribed by the Church are intended for our sanctification, so what we put into the effort is what we will get in return. Nothing should be considered trivial; we must always struggle to the best of abilities. And as with all things, if we fall, we immediately get up and try again. The devil only wins if you stay down.
Our Orthodox Christian faith is sometimes compared to a treasure chest, filled with valuable objects. It is a total package, not a “smorgasbord” where we can pick and choose what we like and what we don’t. But what happens if we decide that one of the jewels in the chest is not to our liking? Maybe we don’t like the color of the amethyst or the clarity of the diamond? We can remove those items from the treasure but by doing so we diminish the treasure’s overall value. That is what happened back in the 14th century: Removing the jewel of the ancient heyschast tradition would lessen the value of our treasure called the Orthodox Christian faith. Losing the means to experience God in our daily lives would enslave Orthodox Christianity to the whims and dictates of science, reducing our faith to just another philosophy.
We should therefore be eternally grateful that God has raised up warriors like St. Gregory Palamas to fight to keep our understanding of Christianity undiminished. It is now our responsibility, here and in the 21st century, to continue to guard that treasury from those forces that try to steal or diminish even the smallest of our beloved traditions. By virtue of being created in the image of God, we too can potentially share in His energies. Like Saints Peter, James, and John (Matt. 17; Mark 9:1), humanity does possess the ability to witness the uncreated light, but only through dedicated and focused prayer, asceticism and quietness of the soul and body. The uncreated light is a gift from God, not a right, and is given by grace to only a select few. But even if we never have the privilege of witnessing such a manifestation, we can rest assured that the possibility does exist, and that we are still able to experience our Living God in many other ways. The heyschast tradition teaches us that God is not remote, and that we, as the creation made in His likeness, can see His glory as the Transfigured Christ.