Gregory Palamas
The
fourteenth century was the time of the Palamite controversy in the Eastern
Church. Gregory Palamas (d.1359) was a monk of Mount Athos. He was a
practitioner of the method of prayer called hesychasm (hesychia means
silence). By this method the person utilizes a rigorous bodily discipline in
order to unite his mind and heart in God through continuous repetition of
the name of Jesus, usually in the form of the Jesus Prayer: Lord Jesus
Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner. Through the use of this
method of prayer the hesychast monks claimed to gain genuine communion with
God, including the spiritual vision of the Uncreated Light of Divinity such
as that seen by Moses on Mount Sinai, and the apostles of Christ at the
transfiguration of the Lord
on Mount Tabor.
In
1326 the Calabrian Barlaam, a Greek uniate and a representative of the
emerging humanist tradition of the Western renaissance, came to
Constantinople. Barlaam and some Byzantine humanists who were highly
influenced by Western philosophical and theological ideas, ridiculed the
practice of hesychast prayer. They generally denied the possibility for men
to be in genuine union with God. In 1333 Gregory Palamas confronted
Barlaam's position and defended hesychasm. He established the Orthodox
doctrine that man can truly know God and can enter into communion with Him
through Christ and the Holy Spirit in the Church.
Essence and Energy
A
council in 1346 upheld Gregory's teaching. The holy monk made his famous
distinction between the unknowable and incomprehensible Essence or
Super-essence of God, and the actions, operations, or energies of God which
are truly uncreated and divine (such as the divine light). These energies
are communicated to men by divine grace and are open to human participation,
knowledge, and experience.
After some years of political turmoil and theological controversy, councils
held in 1347 and in 1351 (the year that Gregory became archbishop of
Thessalonica) again upheld Gregory's position as exactly that of the Bible
and the Tradition of the Orthodox Church. Since that time the theological
distinction between the divine Superessence and the divine energies has
become an official part of the doctrine of the Orthodox Church. Gregory
Palamas was canonized a saint of the Orthodox Church in 1368 just nine years
after his death.
John V Paleologos and Rome
The
leading Byzantine emperor of the fourteenth century John V Paleologos
(1341-1391) continued to have the hope that the West would come to the aid
of the Greeks in the face of the ever-increasing Turkish pressures in the
East. In 1369 John personally entered into communion with the Roman Church,
without an attempt at formal church union. This act produced no lasting
results either for the ecclesiastical or political destiny of
Constantinople.
Russia
The
Russians continued in the south under the Tatar Yoke. In the northern wooded
areas of Muscovy, led by the Prince John Kalita (d. 1341), and the
Metropolitan Alexis as governing regent (1353-1378), the northern Russians
remained free and continued to prosper. The genuine "builder of Russia" in
the north at this time was Saint Sergius of Radonezh (d.1392).
Saint Sergius
Saint Sergius was born in Rostov in 1314. He became a monk in 1334, going
alone into the forests to and pray, giving the name of the Holy Trinity to
monastic chapel. Many persons followed St. Sergius, some to join him in his
monastic life, and others to live around his monastic community as pioneers
and settlers. St. Sergius was extremely humble. He dressed in the poorest
clothes. He continually worked for others. He taught by example only,
fleeing from his position of abbot - which had been forced on him by
Metropolitan Alexis - when he felt that the monks rejected his leadership.
He was a strict ascetic, a practitioner of silent prayer, and a mystic
graced with splendid divine visions and living communion with God.
In
1380 Saint Sergius - who was regularly consulted by Metropolitan Alexius and
the national leaders - blessed the prince Dimitri Donskoi to engage in
battle with the Tatars. Dimitri's victory marked the beginning of the end of
the Tatar control over the Russian lands. The legacy of Saint Sergius to
Russia and the Orthodox Church is immeasurable. Eleven of his disciples
founded monastic centers in northern Russia around which lands were settled
and developed. The mystics, spiritual life of the Russian Church, as well as
the interrelation between the Church and the socio-political life of the
Russian nation in later times was rooted in the person and work of Sergius
of Radonezh.
Saint Stephen of Perm
A
contemporary of St. Sergius, Saint Stephen of Perm (d.1396) was a learned
bishop who undertook missionary work among the Zyrian tribes. Although his
work did not remain, Saint Stephen created the Zyrian alphabet and
translated the church writings into the native language. Thus he combined
the Byzantine tradition of fostering local church life and laying the
spiritual foundations for future missionary work of the Russian Church among
the Siberian tribes and in Japan and Alaska.
Saint Andrew Rubley
Saint Andrew Rublev (d.c1430), the greatest Russian iconographer and perhaps
the greatest iconographer in Orthodox history, did his marvelous work at the
end of the fourteenth and the beginning of the fifteenth centuries. He was a
monk of the monastery of St. Sergius. He was the artistic follower of the
iconographer Theophanes the Greek, and he worked together with his friend
Daniel Chorny. Rublev's most famous work is the icon of the Holy Trinity,
painted for the Trinity St. Sergius monastery, depicting in a perfect
harmony of colors and lines the Three Angels who came to Abraham in the Old
Testament. During this same period there was a renaissance of church art in
the Byzantine empire, with many famous frescoes and mosaics coming from this
period.
The Serbians and the Bulgarians
The
Serbians were enjoying a flourishing period of their history under the rule
of Stephen Dushan. The Serbian Church became a patriarchate in 1346. Also at
this time, Saint Clement of Ochrid (d.1375) lived and worked among the
Bulgarians, being a leader of national enlightenment. Simultaneously, the
Bulgarian monastery of Zoographos was established on Mount Athos.
Liturgical Development
Liturgically the fourteenth century reveals the order of worship in the
Church as virtually the same as it is today. The Commentary on the Divine
Liturgy was written by Nicholas Cabasilas. He also wrote a popular work
called Life in Christ, which gives a symbolical interpretation of the
liturgy showing ritual details which still remain in the Church practices
today. For the first time the prothesis (proskomedia), as a separate rite
preceding the liturgy of the Word, is found in the liturgical books.
The
liturgical commentaries of Simeon of Thessalonica (d.1420) which provide
detailed information about church worship came from this period. An
interesting note in Simeon's writings reveal that at this time the Holy
Eucharist was still being given to Orthodox Christians in the sacrament of
matrimony, and the blessed "common cup" was given only to those who were not
allowed to receive Holy Communion in the Church.
The West
The
West in the fourteenth century saw the "Babylonian captivity" of the Roman
popes in Avignon (I 3 03-13 7 8), and the "great schism" within the Western
Church between various claimants to the papal office. Catherine of Sienna
lived at this time, as did John Wycliffe, the forerunner of the reformation
in England, and the English mystical writers Walter Hilton and Juliana of
Norwich. The end of the fourteenth and the beginning of the fifteenth
centuries witnessed the development of the Brothers of the Common Life in
the low countries. This movement's greatest representative was Thomas a
Kempis who was the author of the famous 'Imitation of Christ'. The writing
of the Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri (d.1321) and the painting of Giotto
(d.1337) was during this period of history.
From: Bible and Church History by
Fr. Thomas Hopko,
Dept. of Religous Education - Orthodox Church in America, Crestwood, New
York
