Hesychasm in Practice: The Homilies of St. Gregory Palamas

Vladyslav Nazarchuk

St. Gregory Palamas (c. 1296–1359) is well-known and venerated within the Eastern Orthodox Church as a “Pillar of Orthodoxy,” who expounded the fundamental Orthodox dogma of the essence-energies distinction within the Godhead, and defended hesychast spirituality as the way to deification. This theological work took the form of many polemical and theological texts and debates with opponents such as Barlaam (c. 1290–1348), Gregory Akindynos (c. 1300–1348), and Nicephorus Gregoras (c. 1295–c. 1360), and was firmly rooted in St. Gregory’s own multi-year experience as a monk on Mount Athos, and abbot. At the same time, St. Gregory is perhaps less known for his role as Archbishop of Thessaloniki, a post which he occupied for the last twelve and a half years of his life. In considering these two aspects of St. Gregory’s person, a question naturally arises: how did St. Gregory’s monastic background and theological work during the Hesychast controversy influence his active pastoral work as archbishop? In particular, could one find traces of the deep theological doctrines of Palamism within St. Gregory’s many homilies, which were addressed to the general layman of the church at Thessaloniki?

In fact, an investigation of several key themes within the body of homilies of St. Gregory Palamas reveals that his pastoral teaching is firmly rooted in his hesychastic theology, and in effect represents the practical application of monastic mystical experience to ordinary, lay life. This essay will seek to demonstrate this by first providing some historical background on St. Gregory’s life as Archbishop of Thessaloniki. Then, two important themes within St. Gregory’s homilies will be considered: inner watchfulness, and the experience of the “divine light.” Their pastoral treatment will be compared with St. Gregory’s more purely theological texts, in particular the Triads for the Defense of the Holy Hesychasts, to show that high-level hesychastic theology can be relevant even to the everyday experience of an Orthodox Christian layman.

St. Gregory as Archbishop of Thessaloniki

St. Gregory’s ascent to the Archbishopric of Thessaloniki in 1347 was at least partially a result of political factors. During the Byzantine civil war of 1341–1347 between “Grand Domestic” John Cantacuzene (1292–1383) on one side, and Empress Anne of Savoy, Patriarch John Calecas, and the “Megaduke” Alexis Apocaucus on the other, St. Gregory remained loyal to Empress Anne, but condemned the coup d’état which deposed Cantacuzene and brought the patriarch and megaduke to power.¹ Previously, Cantacuzene presided over a council in Constantinople in August 1341 which affirmed hesychasm and condemned St. Gregory’s opponent Gregory Akindynos. Also, Meyendorff suggests that St. Gregory’s loyalty to Cantacuzene “was above all based on the conviction that the new Emperor was the only man capable of preserving the unity of the Empire threatened by increasingly centrifugal forces. … In defending the medieval theocracy in the person of Cantacuzene, Palamas wished simply to preserve a traditional prop of orthodoxy.”² In either case, after Cantacuzene entered Constantinople in triumph in February of 1347, St. Gregory was one of the thirty-two new bishops consecrated by the newly-elected Patriarch Isidore. Likely, Cantacuzene wished to see an eminent and loyal political ally like St. Gregory be rewarded with a high post within his new government— Cantacuzene himself records that “Palamas himself was the most popular candidate [for the Patriarchate] because of his virtues, but even more because of his political attitude during the civil war.”³

As Archbishop of Thessaloniki, St. Gregory occupied a prominent position within the Byzantine Empire. George T. Dennis asserts that “as Thessalonike was the second city of the empire, so its bishop, especially in the Palaiologan period, was, albeit not officially, the second among the hierarchs in a diminishing empire.”⁴ Based on sources relating to the Metropolitans of Thessaloniki in the Late Byzantine period, Dennis also derives a picture of the varied and active life which characterized this ecclesiastical post:

“The bishops of Thessalonike played a prominent role in civic affairs. They were involved in the secular courts of law and presided over trials. … The bishops also had to oversee the many philanthropic institutions which characterized Byzantine urban life. They served as counselors to the secular authority, whether it was the emperor’s son … acting as governor of the city, or the emperor himself.”⁵

With this, St. Philotheos Kokkinos (c. 1300–1379), Patriarch of Constantinople and disciple of St. Gregory, “portrays him [St. Gregory] as a very dedicated shepherd of the flock committed to him.”⁶ St. Gregory’s active pastoral activity is also reflected in his conversations with the grandson of the Turkish Emir Orkhan, discussion with the “Chiones” (a group of apostates from Christianity), and preaching to the Muslims, while he was held as a prisoner of the Turks in Asia Minor between 1354 and 1355.⁷

St. Gregory’s major struggle during his metropolitanate was against the “Zealots,” a political faction which represented the interests of the poor and middle classes against the high Byzantine aristocracy, as well as the local interests of Thessaloniki over those of the Empire as a whole.⁸ The Zealots revolted and took control of Thessaloniki in 1342. Since Cantacuzene relied heavily on the aristocracy to establish a strong central government prior to the civil war, and the Zealots cooperated with Apocaucus in his fight against Cantacuzene, St. Gregory—known for his loyalty to Cantacuzene—was refused entry into the city upon his ordination to the archbishopric in 1347. Meyendorff argues that although some Thessalonians were anti-Hesychast, as a whole “the republic of the Zealots at Thessalonica was not at the beginning unfavorable to Palamism,” and that “in the social field, the Hesychasts were conscious of the miserable condition of the poor classes.”⁹ When Cantacuzene took back control of Thessaloniki in 1350, St. Gregory was able to triumphantly enter the city, shortly after which which he preached the sermon “On Peace With One Another.” In this sermon, St. Gregory condemns the violence of the Zealots, which “renders our city like one taken by the enemy.”¹⁰ At the same time, St. Gregory in the same sermon urges the Thessalonians, “Do not take account of evil, do not wish to repay evil with evil, but overcome evil with good,”¹¹ and in general, “was often in his later preaching to condemn the social injustices which had been the cause of the revolt of the Zealots.”¹²

All in all, St. Gregory Palamas’ time as Metropolitan of Thessaloniki had been shaped more by political factors rooted in the Byzantine civil war of 1341–1347, than by the theological issues involved in the Hesychast controversy. This is evident in St. Gregory’s ascension to the Archbishopric, in his conflict with the Zealots, and in his capture by the Turks. At the same time, St. Gregory himself seems to have consistently been guided by a sound Orthodox consciousness above any political considerations. He remained loyal to Cantacuzene for the hope of preserving the Empire and its traditional Orthodoxy, dealt with the Zealots in a Christian rather than a vengeful way, and used his captivity under the Turks as an opportunity to advance the Christian faith through apologetic dialogue. St. Gregory’s hesychastic mindset, acquired through his efforts as an ascetic on Mount Athos, seems to have well prepared him for the ostensibly much different task of active pastoral ministry, within a complex and dynamic Byzantine political environment.

Inner Watchfulness and Prayer

Turning now to the homilies of St. Gregory Palamas, one broad theme which often appears in them is that of inner watchfulness, paying attention to one’s thoughts, and ceaseless prayer. One example of this is St. Gregory’s homily “On the Fourth Sunday of Holy Lent,” preached on the basis of Jesus’ exorcism of a boy possessed by a demon in Mark 9:17–31. St. Gregory symbolically identifies the boy’s demon with the “demon of licentiousness,” because, similar to what the demon did to the boy, “sometimes it casts its victims into the fire—that is, into strange loves devoid of affection—and sometimes it plunges them into the water by means of gluttony and excessive indulgence in drinking and parties.”¹³ St. Gregory interprets Christ’s saying, “This kind cannot be driven out by anything but prayer and fasting,”¹⁴ as a directive for a person suffering from the passion of licentiousness as to how he can heal his soul. The inner dimension of the struggle against this “demon” is paramount to St. Gregory. He says, “Being delivered from bodily sins is not enough, we must also cleanse the inner energy which dwells in our soul. … Even when your body does nothing, sin can be active in your mind,”¹⁵ and adds that “man looks at the outward person, but God regards the heart, and if it is full of foul or evil thoughts, that man deserved to have God turn away from him.”¹⁶ While fasting is a way to curb the “stirrings of the body,” prayer is what cleans the heart from the inside, and repulses inward demonic attacks. However, body and soul are connected: as St. Gregory says, “When your soul inwardly repulses the evil one’s attack by means of prayer, attention, remembrance of death, godly sorrow and mourning the body, too, takes its share of holiness, having acquired freedom from evil actions.”¹⁷

The importance of prayer is also stressed in St. Gregory’s homily “On the Raising of Jairus’ Daughter.” Here, St. Gregory argues that the gifts and blessings which God gives every person are so many, that prayer is the only thing a person can “give back” to God, in particular “his acknowledgment of the favours he had already received and his request for those still to come.”¹⁸ Further, invoking a slightly Anselmian argument, St. Gregory says that prayer is really the only offering one can make to God to “atone” for one’s sin: “Any good we may do, we were obliged to do before we sinned … So the only way we have to remedy our wrongdoings is to glorify God’s incomparable forbearance towards us and to invoke His divine mercies.”¹⁹ Thus, one cannot have any sort of relationship with God without prayer. For this reason, St. Gregory shames his congregation for often preferring practical matters to prayer, such as performing agricultural work instead of attending church during the annual grape harvest—even though it is primarily God who provides the fruit. In fact, success in any endeavor is impossible if it is not accompanied by prayer: “Do you see that it is impossible to have sure faith and genuine virtue without persisting wholeheartedly in hymns and supplications? … We cannot even perform our daily work well unless we share in God’s assistance through earnest entreaty.”²⁰ On the other hand, a lack of prayer opens the way for the devil to enter one’s soul, leading to horrible deeds. Gregory thus summarizes the almost omnipotent power of constant prayer:

“Daily converse with God through prayer and psalmody calms and transforms all attacks, repulses fleshly desires, blunts covetous thoughts, purges away conceit, destroys envy, educates anger, banishes remembrance of wrongs and, setting aside bitterness and contention, bestows every kind of peace, good order and comfort on towns, homes, souls and bodies … Put simply, this is the foundation and assurance of everything good.”²¹

In these two sermons, St. Gregory presents the themes of inner watchfulness and ceaseless prayer in the context of the life of an ordinary citizen of Thessaloniki, and hints how inner healing of individuals can lead to external order and peace within the life of the city as a whole, very relevant to Thessaloniki in the wake of the Zealot revolt. However, both inner watchfulness and prayer are also at the core of monastic hesychast spirituality, which St. Gregory was a representative of. “Hesychasm” itself means “silence” or “stillness,” and the withdrawal inwards and “recollection” of the mind within the heart is a major theme in St. Gregory’s defense of hesychast monasticism in the Triads. There, St. Gregory argues, “With what are we to keep watch, if we do not gather together our mind, which has been dissipated abroad by the senses, and lead it back again into the interior, to the selfsame heart which is the seat of the thoughts?”²² Through this self-recollecting activity of the mind, the mind “comes to transcend itself and be united to God,”²³ and a person is able to become watchful and attentive to themselves, repelling demonic assaults. Because of this, St. Gregory encourages his readers to “place therefore this guard over your soul and body: It will easily deliver you from the evil passions of the body and soul. Maintain this watch, this attention, this self-control, or rather mount guard, be vigilant, keep watch!”²⁴ Much like in St. Gregory’s homily “On the Fourth Sunday of Holy Lent,” this watchfulness within the soul will extend its benefits to the body as well: “So too, in the case of those who have elevated their minds to God and exalted their souls with divine longing, their flesh also is being transformed and elevated, participating together with the soul in the divine communion.”²⁵

Prayer for St. Gregory is absolutely crucial in acquiring this state of “interior reflection.” He observes that “most of the charisms of the Spirit are granted to those worthy of them at the time of prayer,”²⁶ and gives particular worth to “intense mental prayer.” Fasting, too, has a role to play, since one cannot attain this pure prayer without first overcoming his passions and desires for sensual pleasure. St. Gregory writes that

“if we cannot taste mental prayer, … and if we are dominated by passionate emotions, then we certainly stand in need of the physical suffering that comes from fasting, vigils and similar things, if we are to apply ourselves to prayer. This suffering alone mortifies the body’s inclination to sin, and moderates and weakens the thoughts that provoke violent passions.”²⁷

St. Gregory also argues that fasting makes one begin to feel compunction for his sins, which further disposes him towards prayer, and quotes a saying of St. John Climacus that “hunger is the stuff of prayer.”²⁸

Therefore, it is evident that the spiritual advice which St. Gregory gives to the citizens of Thessaloniki in the two homilies discussed above is, at its core, exactly the same as the hesychastic monastic spirituality which he defends in the Triads. In both cases, there is an emphasis on inner purity, which is attained through watchfulness and constant prayer, and is aided by disciplining the body through fasting. The context of this spiritual practice, however, many differ. While monastics are called to strive toward intense mental prayer, during which they outwardly “as far as is possible, cease from all personal activity,”²⁹ laymen can also keep remembrance of God while leading an active lifestyle—for example, praying for God’s help before going to work in the fields, and giving thanks for the fruits of the harvest. Also, while St. Gregory explains monastic watchfulness in a precise, technical way—“recollection,” “enclosing the mind in the heart,” “circular” motion of the mind (using terminology of St. Dionysius)—St. Gregory simply advises laymen to pay attention to their thoughts, and reminds them of the many Gospel teachings and parables regarding this theme, such as the Beatitudes, “cleaning the inside of the cup” (Matt. 23:25–26), and “adultery in the heart” (Matt. 5:28).³⁰ But even if the degree of “hesychasm” which monks and laymen can realistically achieve is different, the core goals of the Christian life remain the same. As St. Gregory writes in the Triads about these two groups,

“Such is the way which leads through impassibility to perfect love, an excellent way which takes us to the heights. It is most appropriate for those detached from the world, for they are consecrated to God, and this union allows them continually to converse with Him with a pure mind. … As to those who live in the world, they must force themselves to use the things of this world in conformity with the commandments of God.”³¹

Divine Light

Another central theme in St. Gregory Palamas’ hesychastic theology is that of the Orthodox Christian experience of the “divine light,” as the uncreated energies of God. In fact, the monastic experience of this light was one of the topics which sparked Barlaam’s initial assault on hesychast spirituality. After St. Gregory’s initial criticism of Barlaam’s writings against the Latins (in which Barlaam apophatically argued that God is completely unknowable), Barlaam spent some time living in hesychastic hermitages at Thessaloniki and Constantinople, where “he met the most popularized form of the psycho-physical method of prayer; it profoundly shocked both his humanistic mentality and his philosophical convictions, imbued with Platonic spirituality.”³² In his Letter V to Ignatius, Barlaam indignantly described his experience there as follows: “They taught me about … the differences between red and white lights, the intelligible entrances and exits produced by the nostrils while breathing, the shields around the navel and, finally, the vision of Our Lord with the soul that is produced within the navel in a perceptible manner.”³³ Later, Barlaam produced a more philosophically-grounded argument for why this mystical light which the hesychast monks claimed to experience could not be God, but was all a product of the monks’ imaginations. He writes (as quoted by St. Gregory in the Triads):

“If they agree to say that the intelligible and immaterial light of which they speak is the superessential God himself and if they continue at the same time to acknowledge that he is absolutely invisible and inaccessible to the senses, they must face a choice … If they say that this light is neither the superessential essence, nor an angelic essence, nor the mind itself, but that the mind contemplates it as another hypostasis, for my part, I do not know what that light is, but I do know that it does not exist.”³⁴

Essentially, Barlaam argues that since God’s essence is beyond any kind of sensation, knowledge, or experience, the hesychastic “divine light” can be none other than some kind of visible, created phenomenon.

To respond to Barlaam’s criticisms, and to defend traditional Orthodox monastic spirituality, St. Gregory articulated the distinction between God’s essence and God’s energy—which can also be referred to as God’s “power,” “kingdom,” “virtue,” or “glory.” In the Triads, St. Gregory logically argues that God’s uncreated essence must also possess uncreated energies:

“Does it [the divine essence] possess the faculties of knowing, of prescience, of creating, of embracing all things in itself; does it possess providence, the power of deification and, in a word, all such faculties, or not? For if it does not have them, this essence is not God … However, if it possessed these faculties from eternity, it follows that not only is the divine essence unoriginate, but that each of its powers is also.”³⁵

St. Gregory then clarifies that God’s energies and essence are distinct, and in fact that God’s essence infinitely transcends His energies. He writes,

“Neither the uncreated goodness, nor the eternal glory, nor the divine life nor things akin to these are simply the superessential essence of God, for God transcends them all as Cause. But we say He is life, goodness and so forth, and give Him these names, because of the revelatory energies and powers of the Superessential.”³⁶

Here, St. Gregory is clearly showing the continuity between his theology and that of St. Dionysius the Areopagite in his Divine Names. Further, St. Gregory explains that God’s energy is still God Himself, since “God is entirely present in each of the divine energies … without any division at all.”³⁷ Finally, whereas the divine essence is wholly transcendent and cannot be participated in (in agreement with Barlaam), “created beings participate in them [God’s energies] … but they themselves are works without beginning.”³⁸ And again, when discussing St. Dionysius’ statement in the Divine Names that “the divine intelligences move in a circular movement, united to the unoriginate and endless rays of the Beautiful and Good,” St. Gregory identifies these “rays” as God’s energies, commenting that “that essence is one, even though the rays are many, and are sent out in a manner appropriate to those participating in them, being multiplied according to the varying capacity of those receiving them.”³⁹

With these theological fundamentals in place, it is not difficult to see that the spiritual light which some monks mystically experience as a result of inner stillness and intense prayer, is nothing else but the uncreated energies of God, which are participable by humans. Even if the hesychast monks whom Barlaam encountered perhaps could not convey their experience in a theologically sophisticated way, St. Gregory is emphatic that seeing this divine light has been a reality within the Orthodox spiritual tradition since the beginning: “This hypostatic light, seen spiritually by the saints, they know by experience to exist … it is an illumination immaterial and divine, a grace invisibly seen and ignorantly known. What it is, they do not pretend to know.”⁴⁰ St. Gregory uses the paradoxical language “invisibly seen and ignorantly known” because this mystical experience transcends both sense and the intellect—but is still described as “light” due to its similarity in some way to physical light, or because the noetic experience can also affect bodily sight, as a secondary effect.

As such, the Transfiguration of Christ on Mount Tabor, as described in the Biblical accounts (Matt. 17:1–8, Mark 9:2–8, and Luke 9:28–36), forms the keystone of this aspect of the Hesychast controversy. As Meyendorff notes, “Take for example the term ‘Taborite light,’ with which hesychasts always describe their experience of God. For they identify the divine reality that reveals itself to the saints with the light that appeared to the Lord’s disciples at His Transfiguration on Mount Tabor.”⁴¹ Meanwhile, Barlaam and his followers evidently argued that the apostles saw this light purely with their bodily eyes, and that it was merely a created phenomenon. Accordingly, St. Gregory also uses the Transfiguration as the main lens through which he presents the Orthodox understanding of the “divine light” in his homilies to the people of Thessaloniki. In the Triads, St. Gregory builds on a theological distinction between the essence and energies of God, which in turn he demonstrates through logical reasoning as well as by citing Church Fathers like St. Dionysius, St. Maximus the Confessor, and St. Gregory of Nyssa. But in his homilies on the divine light, St. Gregory eschews this more abstract, theological approach, and rather seeks to demonstrate the uncreated nature of this divine light from the Gospel account alone.

In his homily “On the Holy Transfiguration of Our Lord and God and Saviour Jesus Christ,” St. Gregory first connects Matthew 17:1–8, which describes the Transfiguration, with the verses just before it, in which Christ teaches His disciples that “the Son of Man is going to come with his angels in the glory of his Father,” and that “there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.”⁴² Since this is immediately followed up with “And after six days Jesus took with him Peter and James, and John his brother, and led them up a high mountain,”⁴³ this indicates that “He was referring to the light of His transfiguration as His Father’s glory and as His own kingdom.”⁴⁴ That is, the light of Christ’s Transfiguration is a foretaste and a demonstration of the things He taught about the age to come just prior. St. Gregory also notices the symbolism in why St. Luke writes that the Transfiguration took place “about eight days after these sayings”:⁴⁵ “Because the great vision of the light of the Lord’s transfiguration is the mystery of the eighth day, that is, of the age to come.”⁴⁶ In identifying the Taborite light with the kingdom of God, St. Gregory is able to conclude that “the light of the Lord’s transfiguration does not come into being or cease to be, nor is it circumscribed or perceptible to the senses,”⁴⁷ along with the other attributes of the uncreated energies of God.

St. Gregory is evidently sensitive to how important the question of the nature of the light of the Transfiguration is, in the context of his controversy with Barlaam and his followers. St. Gregory says:

“There are people in our own times, who boast of pagan Greek learning and the wisdom of this world, and who completely disobey spiritual men in matters of the Spirit … When they hear that the light of the Lord’s transfiguration on the mountain was seen by the eyes of the apostles, they immediately reduce it to visible, created light. They drag down that immaterial, never-setting, pre-eternal light, which surpasses not only our sense but also our minds, because they themselves are at a low level, and are incapable of conceiving of anything higher than earthly things.”⁴⁸

Accordingly, St. Gregory also demonstrates why the Taborite light could not have been ordinary, visible light. He asks, “How could the vision of ordinary light, visible to those chosen before they ascended, as well as to those left below, be a great mystery? Why would they need strengthening by the Spirit, and why would their eyes have to be assisted and changed by the Spirit to see such light, if it were visible and created?”⁴⁹ Also, regarding the two prophets who appeared at Christ’s side, St. Gregory argues, “How could Moses and Elijah, and particularly Moses who was a spirit without a body, have been seen and glorified by means of ordinary light?” Finally, in a second homily on the same topic, “Another on the Transfiguration of the Lord,” St. Gregory carefully analyzes St. Luke’s phrase that Christ’s clothing became “dazzling white”: “It is not a property of light to render the objects it illuminates sparkling and white, but to show up what colour they are. This light, however, apparently revealed, or rather, transformed, the things it shone upon, which visible light cannot do.”⁵⁰ Thus, St. Gregory demonstrates that it is enough to pay attention to the words of the Gospel accounts to see that the light of the Transfiguration was not ordinary, visible light. Thus, the apostles “saw” the transfigured Christ not with their ordinary faculty of sight, but “the initiated disciples of the Lord ‘passed,’ as we have been taught, ‘from flesh to spirit’ by the transformation of their senses, which the Spirit wrought in them.”⁵¹

Conclusion

The overall aim of this essay was to explore the connection between St. Gregory Palamas’ monastic experience and hesychast theology on one side, and his active pastoral and homiletic work as Archbishop of Thessaloniki on the other. From a historical overview of the events and controversies surrounding his archbishopric, it is evident just how much contemporary Byzantine politics played a part—particularly in St. Gregory’s election as Archbishop, and in his conflict with the Zealot uprising in Thessaloniki. It is also clear how competent St. Gregory was in dealing with these upheavals, using a genuine Christian, pastoral mindset, evidently acquired as a result of his monastic experiences on Mount Athos. In his homilies as archbishop, which St. Gregory gave before the citizens of Thessaloniki, one can observe the same exact theology as that contained in St. Gregory’s Triads for the Defense of the Holy Hesychasts. For instance, both his homilies and the Triads stress the importance of maintaining a “pure heart” by keeping careful watch over oneself and one’s thoughts, and the critical role of both ceaseless prayer and fasting in repelling demonic attacks and curbing the passions of the body, creating the “condition of the possibility” for this purity to occur. Also, both St. Gregory’s homilies and the Triads teach the existence of the uncreated energies of God, which also constitute the “divine light” experienced by the saints.

The differences in St. Gregory’s two presentations of the same core truths can rather be attributed to the possibilities which people of different stations in life naturally have. While hesychast monastics have the opportunity to maintain outward stillness as an aid to intense inner prayer, laymen can also constantly remember God among their daily work: for example, by making time to attend church services even during a busy harvest season. Also, since the Triads is a theological text rooted in monastic experience and aimed at a learned and philosophically-minded audience, St. Gregory is able to use more sophisticated terminology (“essence,” “energy,” “recollection”), cite heavily the works of other saintly Orthodox theologians, and work on a fundamental dogmatic level, such as when he carefully draws the distinction between the energies and essence of God. Meanwhile, in his homilies, St. Gregory finds a way to explain essentially the same things by using simpler terms (for example, using “glory” and “kingdom” instead of “energy”), applying these truths to the daily concerns of the people of Thessaloniki at the time, and making heavy use of the Gospels as proof. All this shows that the hesychast theology of St. Gregory Palamas is relevant not only to a particular class of monks, or to the specific Byzantine theological debates of his day, but even to the daily lives of regular Orthodox Christian laymen today—who can nevertheless experience a bit of that “divine light” which the apostles witnessed at Mount Tabor.