The Life
Saint Gregory Palamas grew up in the imperial palace at Constantinople. The emperor wanted him to be a courtier. Instead he disappeared to Mount Athos at twenty and became a monk. There he learned a way of praying that the desert fathers had taught for a thousand years — the Jesus Prayer, said quietly in the heart, in stillness. When a clever Italian named Barlaam came along and said this kind of prayer was nonsense, Saint Gregory rose to defend it. He won. The Church declared him right at three different councils. The Second Sunday of Great Lent is named after him. He is one of the great fathers of Orthodox prayer.
Gregory was born in Constantinople in 1296. His father was a court official who died when Gregory was small. The Emperor Andronicus II personally took over his education — the boy was that gifted. He mastered everything: philosophy, science, rhetoric, theology. The emperor was sure Gregory would have a brilliant career in the imperial government. But Gregory had been listening to a different voice. At twenty years old, he walked away from the palace. He left for Mount Athos. He became a novice. He never came back to court life. The emperor was disappointed. The Lord was very pleased.
Gregory spent the next twenty years on Mount Athos. He learned, from the elders, the practice the desert fathers had taught for a thousand years — to sit in stillness, to gather the mind into the heart, to pray the Jesus Prayer slowly, with each breath, until the words went deep. The Greek word for this kind of stillness is hesychia. The monks who practiced it were called hesychasts. A year after his entry, the Apostle John the Theologian appeared to Gregory in a vision and promised to be his patron. Gregory served eight years under the Elder Nikephoros after his first elder reposed, then moved to the Lavra of Saint Athanasius, then to a smaller skete called Glossia. Each move was deeper into silence.
Around 1330, a learned monk named Barlaam arrived in Constantinople from Italy. He was a great philosopher, expert in Aristotle, very impressive. He went to Mount Athos to see the famous hesychasts. What he saw appalled him. They sat still in their cells, breathing slowly, repeating prayers, claiming to perceive an uncreated divine light. Barlaam thought it was nonsense — mysticism, superstition, a kind of monkish navel-gazing. He started writing pamphlets ridiculing the monks. He said it was impossible to know God in this life at all, and the monks who claimed to see the divine light were deceived.
The Athonite monks asked Gregory to defend them. He wrote three sets of three treatises — nine in all — called the Triads in Defense of the Holy Hesychasts. In them he made a distinction that would change Orthodox theology forever: God in his essence is unknowable, even to the angels; but God truly gives himself to us through his energies, which are not less than God himself. The light the monks see on Mount Tabor and in the depths of prayer is the uncreated divine light — the same light the Apostles saw on the Mountain of the Transfiguration. It is not a created thing. It is God himself, communicating his life to those who have prepared themselves to receive him.
In 1341, the Church called a great council at Hagia Sophia. Saint Gregory and Barlaam debated face to face. The Church sided with Saint Gregory. Barlaam was condemned and fled to Italy. But the controversy was not over. Barlaam’s disciples kept attacking. A new patriarch, John Kalekos, sided with the heretics and threw Saint Gregory into prison. He was there for four years. In 1347 a new patriarch released him and made him Archbishop of Thessalonica. In 1351 yet another council — the Council of Blachernae — confirmed everything Saint Gregory had taught. He had been right all along. The Church had spoken three times in his favor.
When Peter, James, and John climbed Mount Tabor with the Lord, his face shone like the sun and his garments became white as light. They saw the divine glory shining out of him. Saint Gregory taught that this same light is what the Saints have always seen in prayer. It is not a created brightness, like sunlight or fire. It is God himself, communicating his glory to those who have prepared themselves to receive him. Saint Symeon the New Theologian saw it. Saint Seraphim of Sarov’s face shone with it during his conversation with Motovilov. Saint Silouan of Athos experienced it. Every Orthodox tradition of mystical prayer rests on this teaching: that the Lord really does give himself to those who seek him.
On the night before he died, Saint John Chrysostom appeared to him in a vision. The next day, Saint Gregory died with these words on his lips: "To the heights! To the heights!" Where else would he go? His whole life had been the upward climb of the soul into the divine Light. At the moment of his death, the Lord called him there in fullness.
This is the verse Saint Gregory built his theology on. The Apostles really saw the Lord shining. The light was not in their imagination. It was the eternal glory of God shining out of the face of Christ. And the same Lord still shines, in our own time, into the hearts of those who pray.
Saint Gregory served as Archbishop of Thessalonica for twelve years. He preached, healed the sick, defended the poor, and continued writing. Once his ship was captured by the Turks and he was held captive for a year — even then he kept preaching, to his Christian fellow-prisoners and even to his Muslim captors. They were astonished by him. He was ransomed and went home. He fell asleep in the Lord on November 14, 1359, at sixty-three years old. Just nine years later, in 1368, the Church formally glorified him as a saint. His relics rest in the cathedral at Thessalonica today, where pilgrims come to ask his prayers.
Saint Gregory matters to every Orthodox Christian because he assured us, with the authority of the whole Church, that prayer is real. When you stand before your icons in the morning and say the Jesus Prayer, the Lord really does meet you there. The light the Saints saw on the mountain is the same light Saint Gregory saw on Athos, and the same light that touches every faithful soul in its measure. The Second Sunday of Great Lent honors him every year, because the Church wants you, in the middle of the Fast, to remember what the Fast is for: to prepare you to see the Light. He taught us that this is possible. The whole Church has agreed.