GREGORIOS AKINDYNOS. — A Greek monk of the 14th century whose life is almost unknown and whose works are almost entirely unpublished. He took an active part in the Palamite controversy (cf. EISCASMO; PALAMAS), to which all his writings refer. Initially favourable to Palamas, whom he hoped to bring back to orthodoxy, he later became his staunch opponent. It was wrongly claimed that A. was a friend of the Latins, a Latinizer, versed in Western scholasticism, because he was a disciple of Barlaam (q.v.) of Seminara and especially because he was erroneously attributed the work *De essentia et operatione*, which is by Prochoros Kydones. In reality, A. is a rigidly conservative Byzantine; nothing in him indicates a knowledge of Latin scholasticism. In the Palamite controversy, A. sided with the party opposed to any doctrinal innovation. Although he is usually associated with Barlaam in the anathemas of the Palamite councils, he was far from sharing all the opinions of the Calabrian, particularly that concerning the nature of the traditional light. He agrees with him only on the fundamental thesis of the absolute simplicity of God.
His writings include 3 confessions of faith, 5
various refutations of differing length against the theology of Palamas, a Report to Patriarch John Kalekas on the origin of the controversy between Barlaam and Palamas, a poem of 509 iambs against Palamas, some letters and iambs to Nicephoros Gregoras. Apart from the Report, published by Theodore Uspenskii (*The Synodikon of the Sunday of Orthodoxy*, Odessa 1893, pp. 88 ff., in Russian), the poem against Palamas edited in PG 150, 843-63, two letters and some iambs to Gregoras (PG 148, 70 ff., 84 ff., 29 ff., 72 ff.), everything else remains unpublished and is found in Cod. 223 of Munich and Cod. Marcianus 155 of Venice.