Legacy and Reception

How St. Gregory Palamas passed from a contested archbishop into a canonized doctor of the Church and the patron of a “second Triumph of Orthodoxy” — his swift canonization in 1368 by his own disciple Patriarch Philotheos Kokkinos, his Lenten feast, his relics in Thessaloniki, and the entry of his doctrine into the Synodikon of Orthodoxy — and how that Byzantine settlement was forgotten, denounced in the Catholic West, revived by twentieth-century Orthodox theology, and is now debated afresh under the name “Palamism.”

Tradition: Pan-Orthodox (Church Father)

This section turns from Palamas’s own works and ministry to his afterlife in the Church and in the academy. Two complementary stories are told. The first is the story of veneration: Palamas died in Thessaloniki on November 14, 1359 — the tradition of his dying cry, “To the heights!”, pinned to its source in Philotheos Kokkinos’s encomium — and was canonized only nine years later, in 1368, in the same Tome that condemned the last anti-Palamite, Prochoros Kydones. His feast was set on the Second Sunday of Great Lent, immediately after the Sunday of Orthodoxy, framing his vindication as a continuation of the Church’s victory over heresy; his name and doctrine were written into the Synodikon of Orthodoxy proclaimed every Lent; and his relics were enshrined in the city of his episcopate, whose Metropolitan Cathedral now bears his name.

The second is the story of reception and scholarship: the confident Palamism of late Byzantium (Philotheos; the nuanced case of Nicholas Cabasilas); the long post-Byzantine dormancy and the hostile Neo-Scholastic reading that, in Martin Jugie, framed “Palamism as heresy”; the twentieth-century revival through Lossky, Krivocheine, the Philokalia, and above all Meyendorff’s 1959 study — together with its critics, especially John Romanides’s famous review and the debate over Meyendorff’s “Christological corrective” reading; and the present scene of “neo-Palamism,” analytic-theology engagement, Norman Russell’s 2019 survey, and the role of the essence–energies distinction in Catholic–Orthodox dialogue. Throughout, the hagiographical and the historical are kept distinct, and the encomium of Philotheos is used critically.

Section Contents

• Canonization (1368) — the death of November 14, 1359 and its dying-words tradition; the 1368 canonization by Patriarch Philotheos Kokkinos and the Tome of 1368; the Second Sunday of Lent as a “second Triumph of Orthodoxy,” with the troparion and kontakion; the Synodikon anathemas and acclamations; and the relics in Thessaloniki.
• The Palamite Revival — the reception arc from late-Byzantine Palamism (Kokkinos; Cabasilas) through post-Byzantine dormancy and Jugie’s hostile reading, to the modern revival (Lossky, Krivocheine, Philokalia vol. 4, Meyendorff 1959 and Romanides’s critique), “neo-Palamism,” the analytic-theology engagement, Russell’s 2019 survey, and Catholic–Orthodox dialogue today.

See Also

• Councils 1341–1351 — the dogmatic synods the canonization crowned
• The Distinction — the essence–energies doctrine ratified by the Synodikon and debated in the revival
• Triads: Structure and Argument — the text central to the modern recovery
• One Hundred Fifty Chapters — the work carried in Philokalia vol. 4
• Critique of Scholasticism — the East–West frame of the modern debates
• The Ecumenical Councils — the conciliar tradition into which the Palamite councils were received
• The Church Fathers — the patristic frame in the broader guide

References

• Russell, Norman. Gregory Palamas and the Making of Palamism in the Modern Age. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019.
• Meyendorff, John. A Study of Gregory Palamas. Trans. George Lawrence. London: Faith Press, 1964 (French orig. 1959).
• Philotheos Kokkinos. Encomium (Life) of Gregory Palamas [PG 151:551–656].
• Orthodox Church in America. “Saint Gregory Palamas” (November 14) and “2nd Sunday of Great Lent: St Gregory Palamas,” with troparion and kontakion. oca.org.