06 — Palamas and the Neo-patristic Synthesis

Stăniloae’s pioneering 1938 study of St Gregory Palamas — one of the earliest modern scholarly recoveries of Palamite theology, predating the Western rediscovery — and his place among the neo-patristic theologians of the twentieth century alongside Lossky and Florovsky, with attention to what distinguishes him.

Tradition: Romanian Orthodox

This section locates Stăniloae in two overlapping stories: the modern recovery of St Gregory Palamas, in which his 1938 monograph was a landmark, and the wider neo-patristic movement of return to the Fathers. Stăniloae and Palamism treats the Palamas study and the place of the essence–energies distinction in his thought; Among the Neo-patristic Theologians treats his relation to Lossky, Florovsky, and the “return to the Fathers,” and his distinctives.

Contents

File	Description
Stăniloae and Palamism	The 1938 monograph on St Gregory Palamas and the essence–energies distinction in his theology
Among the Neo-patristic Theologians	His relation to Lossky and Florovsky; the “return to the Fathers”; his distinctives

See Also

• St. Gregory Palamas — the theologian recovered in Stăniloae’s 1938 study
• Method and Sources — the neo-patristic method
• Formation at Cernăuți and Abroad — the study abroad that began the turn to Palamas