St. Gregory Palamas

Oversimplified

• Fourteenth-century archbishop of Thessalonica who defended the hesychast monks' claim to know God directly through His uncreated energies.
• His distinction between God's unknowable essence and His communicable energies is a cornerstone of Orthodox theology.

Summary

St. Gregory Palamas (1296–1359) defended the monks of Athos, who taught that through stillness (hesychia) and the Jesus Prayer one could behold the same uncreated Light that shone at the Transfiguration. Against Barlaam, who called this impossible, Gregory articulated the essence–energies distinction.[^1]

Essence and energies

God's essence remains utterly transcendent and unknowable; His energies — His real activity, grace, and light — truly reach us, so that we partake of God Himself without becoming God by nature. This is how Theosis is genuine deification and not mere metaphor. The Church affirmed his theology at councils in 1341–1351 and keeps his memory on the Second Sunday of Lent. See Essence Energies, Theosis, Nous.

[^1]: St. Gregory Palamas, Triads in Defense of the Holy Hesychasts; and the Palamite councils of 1341–1351.