Hierarch Gregory Palamas

Saint Gregory Palamas was born in 1296 in Constantinople to a noble family close to the imperial court. After an excellent secular education, he left the world around 1316 for Mount Athos, training under hesychast elders before being ordained. In the 1330s he became the chief defender of hesychast prayer against the Calabrian philosopher Barlaam and his follower Gregory Akindynos, who denied that the divine light experienced by monks in prayer could be real. Palamas gave theological grounding to the distinction between God's incomprehensible essence and His uncreated energies, through which believers truly partake of divine grace. His teaching was affirmed as the doctrine of the whole Church by the Constantinopolitan councils of 1341, 1347, and 1351. Around 1347 he was consecrated Archbishop of Thessalonica, where he shepherded his flock and wrote theology until the end of his life. He reposed on November 14 (dated variously to 1357 or 1359). The Church commemorates him on the Second Sunday of Great Lent, celebrating Orthodox teaching on divine grace, in addition to his fixed feast on November 14/27.