Akindynos, Gregorios

AKINDYNOS, GREGORIOS. - Greek monk of the 14th century, whose life is almost unknown and whose works are almost all unpublished. He took an active part in the Palamite controversy (v. HESYCHASM; PALAMAS), to which all his writings refer. At first favorable to Palamas, whom he hoped to bring back to orthodoxy, he later became his resolute adversary. A. was wrongly made out to be a friend of the Latins, a Latinizer, versed in Western scholasticism, because he was a disciple of Barlaam (v.) of Seminara and above all because the work De essentia et operatione, which is by Prochoros Cydones, was erroneously attributed to him. In reality A. is a rigidly conservative Byzantine; and nothing in him indicates any knowledge of Latin scholasticism. In the Palamite controversy, A. fought in the party opposed to every doctrinal innovation. Although he is usually associated with Barlaam in the anathemas of the Palamite councils, he is far from sharing all the opinions of the Calabrian, especially that on the nature of the Taboric light. He agrees with him only on the fundamental thesis of the absolute simplicity of God.

His writings comprise 3 confessions of faith, 5 various refutations of differing length of the theology of Palamas, a Report to the Patriarch John Kalekas on the origin of the controversy between Barlaam and Palamas, a poem of 509 iambics against Palamas, some letters and iambics to Nikephoros Gregoras. Except for the Report, published by Theodore Ouspensky (The Synodikon of the Sunday of Orthodoxy, Odessa 1893, p. 88 ff., in Russian), the poem against Palamas edited in PG 150, 843-63, two letters and some iambics to Gregoras (PG 148, 70 f., 84 ff., 29 f., 72 f.), everything else is unpublished and is found in Cod. 223 of Munich and Cod. Marcianus 155 of Venice.