PALAMAS and PALAMISM. – Gregory P., Byzantine theologian of the 14th century, founder of the new doctrinal trend known by his name as Palamism, born of a noble family c. 1269 in Constantinople, died in Thessalonica on 14 November 1359. At the Athos he received the monastic habit and from then on always defended Hesychasm (q.v.), though he could little practice the retired life of prayer because of the continual disputes he had to sustain in the capital of the Empire with the adversaries of his system, namely Patriarch Kalekas and the philosophers Barlaam, Akindynos and Nicephorus Gregoras.
Once he obtained the see of Thessalonica, he was twice recalled to Constantinople, and after having suffered harsh imprisonment at the hands of the Turks, he died in his see (Philotheus Kokkinos, Λόγος ἐγκωμιαστικός: PG 151, 635 D). A most prolific writer, he left many ascetic, hagiographic and homiletic works, and above all polemical-theological ones, most of which remain unpublished. In the Byzantine-Russian schismatic Church he is venerated as a saint from the year 1368, on the day of his death, and solemnly commemorated in the acclamations of the “Feast of Orthodoxy.”
PALAMISM. – The theological system promoted by P. has its origin in the oral and written controversies with Barlaam of Calabria before 1340, and may be said to have been fundamentally constructed, under the pressing insistence of the philosopher, with the publication of the celebrated Triads still unpublished, whose authoritative summary was made by the Athos in the agioritic year 1339-40.
When silence was imposed on the two contending parties in 1341, Barlaam having fled, the Empire was thrown into turmoil by the ambitious moves of Cantacuzenus after the sudden death of Andronicus III, P. succeeded in having his ideas approved at the synod held in August under Cantacuzenus’ presidency that same year and in the (interpolated) Tomos written afterwards (Ἐπανεστός: PG 151, 679-92). Thereupon Patriarch John Kalekas condemned P.’s writings synodically and, despairing of his repentance, launched the anathema (4 November 1344). But the fortunes of the cause were soon to change decisively when in May 1347 Cantacuzenus entered Constantinople in triumph, made amicable terms with the Empress Anna, deposed Kalekas from the patriarchate, and the Palamites occupied the principal episcopal sees, including Thessalonica, which was entrusted to P. by the new Patriarch Isidore. After Isidore, Callistus succeeded, who with Cantacuzenus’ favour arranged for the most important Palamite synod to be celebrated in May-June 1351, in which the new chief doctrinal heads of P. were approved, sanctioned by Nilus Cabasilas and Philotheus Kokkinos in the celebrated Tomos Ὁ ἅγιος κατὰ τῆς ἐκκλησίας (Dosith., Τόμος Ἀγάπης, pp. 52-84; PG 151, 717-64). Only the solemn acceptance of the new theology as official for the Church of Byzantium was still lacking for the final triumph of Palamism, which came in July 1352, when a summary of it was included in the acclamations of the so-called Sunday of Orthodoxy. After the last Palamite synod of 1368, with the condemnation of Prochorus Cydones and the canonization of P., no further official decisions were taken among the “Orthodox” regarding Palamism, though it continued to exist, albeit in a mitigated form, and even today finds a new revival among certain Greek-Russian writers.
The Palamite doctrine, starting from the purity of heart for contemplation and holding the Taboric light to be the divine reality manifested to the soul of the just who otherwise cannot see God, was strengthened in its real distinction between God and divinity, divine nature and divine Persons, divine essence and divine properties proceeding from the essence, thus establishing primary and secondary elements in the very notion of God. This distinction constitutes the central point of the system.
Hence it is that Palamism directly opposes the Catholic dogma of the absolute simplicity of God, a doctrine always upheld by the Byzantine Church, so that it had to be rejected from the outset by Patriarch Kalekas as a dangerous and untraditional novelty. The further development of this fundamental point vitiated, necessarily, many other aspects of ancestral theology, above all those concerning the doctrine of Grace, which P. identified with the light of Tabor as one of the infinite properties of God, eternal and uncreated, inseparably united yet distinct from the divine essence. The notion of the gifts of the Holy Spirit and of the indwelling of the divine Persons in the just was also vitiated, as was the true possession and vision of God in glory.
The Catholic Church has indirectly condemned Palamism in not a few documents (Denz-U, 294, 389-392, 431-32) and, taking into account the history of the decree Pro Graecis, also directly at the Council of Florence in the question of the Last Things (Denz-U, 693; E. Candal, Concilium Florentinum, II, 1, Rome 1942, pp. L-LI and 86-90, nn. 101-107).