The Confession of the Uncreated Energies

The Palamite block of the Synodikon does something the rest of the document rarely does: after condemning the anti-hesychast positions it states the Orthodox doctrine positively, in a series of “Eternal Memory” clauses that amount to a compact dogmatic confession of the uncreated energies. This file sets out both halves, quoting the text, and defers the controversy’s detail to the St. Gregory Palamas collection.

Tradition: Pan-Orthodox

The Negative Half: The Chapters against Barlaam and Akindynos

The received text of the Triodion heads this block “The Chapters against Barlaam and Akindynus.” Its clauses are not numbered here (METHODOLOGY §2). Their content, in the order of the received text:

On the light of Tabor. Against those who “at times think and say that the light which shone forth from the Lord at His Divine transfiguration is an apparition, a thing created, and a phantom which appears for an instant and then immediately vanishes,” and who “at other times think and say that this light is the very essence of God,” casting themselves “into entirely contradictory and impossible positions” — on the one hand, “raving with Arius’ madness,” severing the one Godhead “into created and uncreated,” and on the other, “entangled in the impiety of the Massalians who assert that the Divine essence is visible”; against those, therefore, who do not confess “that that supremely Divine light is neither a created thing, nor the essence of God, but is rather uncreated and natural grace, illumination, and energy which everlastingly and inseparably proceeds from the very essence of God” (Synodikon of Orthodoxy, received Greek text of the Triodion; English translation circulated from Holy Transfiguration Monastery, Boston).

The dilemma the chapter poses is exact and is the hinge of the whole controversy. If the light is created, then what the saints see is not God; if it is the essence, then the essence is visible and the Massalian error follows. The Orthodox answer is a third term: it is God’s own uncreated energy.

On whether God has a natural energy. Against those who “think and say that God has no natural energy, but is nought but essence,” supposing essence and energy “entirely identical and undistinguishable”; who thereby “senselessly abolish the very essence of God and reduce it to non-being, for, as the teachers of the Church say, ‘Only non-being is deprived of an energy’”; who “think as did Sabellios,” renewing his confusion of the hypostases now at the level of essence and energy; and who do not confess “that in God there is both essence and essential, natural energy, as a great many of the saints, and especially all those who gathered at the Sixth Ecumenical Council, have clearly explained with respect to Christ’s two energies, both Divine and human, and His two wills.” The chapter then states the formula: “even as there is an unconfused union of God’s essence and energy, so is there also an undivided distinction between them, for, among other things, essence is cause while energy is effect, essence suffers no participation, while energy is communicable” (received text).

The appeal to Constantinople III (680–681) is doctrinally decisive and often overlooked. The Sixth Council defined that Christ has two natural wills and two natural energies; the Palamite chapters argue that this presupposes that a nature has an energy — so that to deny God a natural energy is to unsay the Sixth Council (see Constantinople II (553) and III (680); St. Maximus the Confessor, whose defense of the two energies is the precedent).

On created energies. Against those who say “that every natural power and energy of the Tri-hypostatic Godhead is created,” and who are thereby constrained to believe the divine essence created too, “since, according to the saints, created energy evidences a created nature, whereas uncreated energy designates an uncreated nature”; against those, therefore, who do not confess “that every natural power and energy of the Tri-hypostatic Godhead is uncreated” (received text).

On divine simplicity. Against those who say that “through these pious doctrines a compounding comes to pass in God,” refusing the teaching of the saints “that no compounding occurs in a nature from its natural properties”; and who do not confess “that the Divine simplicity is most excellently preserved in this God-befitting distinction” (received text). This is the answer to the standing objection — that the essence–energies distinction makes God composite — and the answer is that natural properties do not compose a nature.

On the name “Godhead.” Against those who say that the name “Godhead” or “Divinity” can be applied only to the essence, and who do not confess that “this appellation equally pertains to the Divine energy,” so that “one Godhead of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is by all means still professed, whether one apply the name ‘Godhead’ to Their essence, or to Their energy” (received text).

On the communicability of the essence. Against those who “think and say that the essence of God is communicable,” thereby reintroducing the Massalian error, and who do not confess “that the essence of God is wholly inapprehensible and incommunicable, whereas the grace and energy of God are communicable” (received text).

On the writings. “To all the impious words and writings of these men, Anathema” (received text).

The Positive Half: What the Church Confesses

Immediately after the acclamations of the emperor Andronikos, of St. Gregory Palamas, and of those who fought with them, the Synodikon does something unusual: it states the doctrine positively, and answers each statement not with “Anathema” but with “Eternal Memory.” These clauses form, in effect, a small creed of the uncreated energies.

On the uncreated energy. “To those who confess one Tri-hypostatic and almighty God, Who is not only uncreated with respect to His essence and His Hypostases, but also with respect to His energy; to those who declare that the energy of God proceeds from His Divine essence, but proceeds inseparably, and who thus indicate by the term ‘procession’ the ineffable distinction between the Divine essence and energy, and by the term ‘inseparably’ their supernatural unity, even as the Holy Sixth Ecumenical Council proclaimed, Eternal Memory” (received text).

On incommunicability and participation. “To those who confess that even as God is uncreated and unoriginate with respect to His essence, so is He uncreated and unoriginate with respect to His energy… and to those who declare that God is in every way incommunicable and incomprehensible with respect to His essence, but is communicated to the worthy with respect to His Divine and deifying energy, as the theologians of the Church profess, Eternal Memory” (received text).

This is the doctrine of theosis in its dogmatic form, and it is the reason the Palamite chapters matter to every Christian and not only to monks: God remains unknowable in what He is, and gives Himself really — not by a created intermediary — in what He does. Deification is participation in the uncreated. The doctrine is developed in the wave sibling Theosis and in Theosis.

On the light of Tabor, positively. “To those who confess that the light which shone forth ineffably upon the mountain at the Lord’s Transfiguration is unapproachable light, boundless light, an incomprehensible effusion of the Deity’s resplendence, unutterable glory, the transcendently perfect and… timeless glory of the Godhead, the glory of the Son, the Kingdom of God, true and lovable beauty which encompasses the Divine and blessed nature, the glory natural to God, and the Divinity of the Father and the Spirit flashing forth in the Only-begotten Son, as our divine and God-bearing fathers have said, Athanasios the Great and Basil the Great, Gregory the Theologian, John Chrysostom, and moreover John of Damascus, and who therefore maintain this supremely Divine light to be uncreated, Eternal Memory” (received text).

On the light as glory, not essence. “To those who affirm the light of the Lord’s Transfiguration to be uncreated, and do not assert that this is the super-essential essence of God, since the Divine essence remains in every way unseen and uncommunicated; ‘No man hath seen God at any time,’ that is, as the theologians explain, as He is in His nature; but who say rather, that this is the natural glory of the super-essential essence, the glory which proceeds inseparably forth from thence and, by God’s love for men, shines upon those who are purified in mind, with which glory… our Lord and God will appear in His second and dread Coming to judge the living and the dead, Eternal Memory” (received text).

The last clause is eschatological, and deliberately so: the light of Tabor, the light of the purified mind in prayer, and the glory of the Second Coming are one and the same uncreated glory (see Uncreated Light and Prayer; Orthodox Eschatology).

Why This Is the Turning Point

With these chapters the Synodikon stops being an anthology of condemnations and becomes a dogmatic charter. Three consequences follow.

Hesychasm becomes the Church’s own. What had been the practice of monks on Athos and elsewhere is, from 1351/52, the confessed faith of the Church, chanted annually before everyone (see Mount Athos; The Jesus Prayer; The Philokalia, which transmits the tradition these chapters defend).

Grace is defined as uncreated. The chapters exclude, by name and by argument, any account in which what is given to the saints is a created gift. This is the point at which Orthodox and Latin scholastic theology visibly diverge on grace — a divergence treated soberly in Azymes, Purgatory, and Created Grace and in Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism.

The Sixth Council is made load-bearing. By grounding the essence–energies distinction in the two-energies definition of 680–681, the chapters tie the fourteenth-century settlement to the ancient conciliar corpus rather than presenting it as new. Whether that grounding is exegetically successful is a question modern scholarship has debated; the Church’s own reception of the Tomos of 1351 has not been in doubt (Norman Russell, Gregory Palamas and the Making of Palamism in the Modern Age [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019], on the modern debate; John Meyendorff, A Study of Gregory Palamas, trans. George Lawrence [London: Faith Press, 1964], 90–94, on the Tomos).

A Note on What Is Not Argued Here

This file has deliberately not argued the case for the essence–energies distinction, nor rehearsed Barlaam’s philosophical position in his own terms, nor entered the twentieth-century scholarly controversy over whether “Palamism” is a coherent development of the Fathers or a systematization of them. All three belong to St. Gregory Palamas, where they are treated at length — see especially The Distinction, Patristic Pedigree, and The Palamite Revival. What belongs here is only this: the Church put the answer in the Synodikon, and therefore said it every year.

References

Synodikon of Orthodoxy. Received Greek text as printed in the Triodion, “The Chapters against Barlaam and Akindynus” and the following acclamations; English translation circulated from Holy Transfiguration Monastery, Boston.
Meyendorff, John. A Study of Gregory Palamas. Trans. George Lawrence. London: Faith Press, 1964. Pp. 90–94. (The Tomos of 1351 and its content.)
Russell, Norman. Gregory Palamas and the Making of Palamism in the Modern Age. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019. (The modern scholarly debate over the patristic grounding.)
Gouillard, Jean. “Le Synodikon de l’Orthodoxie: édition et commentaire.” Travaux et Mémoires 2 (1967): 1–316. (The critical edition; not consulted directly for this collection.)
METHODOLOGY.md of this repository, §2 (anathema numbering), §4.1.