War and Peace in the Hesychast Theology and Pastoral Practice of St Gregory Palamas

In this paper, our interest and focus will be on the first inaugural address of St. Gregory Palamas as Archbishop of Thessaloniki, which he delivered in 1350, three days after his arrival in the city, following the cessation of the Zealot revolution. This homily contains an excellent theological and political approach to peace and was delivered at a hiμstorical juncture that clearly showed the successive internal and external dangers for waning Byzantium. Above all, however, this homily is of great interest to us in order to reconstruct elements and examples for our own time and experience. These highlights show that beyond barren antagonisms and sterile ideological debates, through a genuine, critical and creative dialogue of all the trends and currents of Orthodox theology of the 20th and 21st centuries, we ought to move forward and ultimately develop a contemporary and ecumenically fuller example of updated and discerning theology within our difficult and complex times.

The Age of St Gregory Palamas

After a millennium of prosperity for the Eastern Roman Empire, the fourteenth century marked its complete decline. The Empire’s wounds from the fall of 1204 remained open. At the end of the thirteenth century, various Ottoman tribes overran Asia Minor and many Greeks or Romans were forced to leave their homes and migrate to the European part of the Empire. This is the period when Gregory Palamas’ parents settled in Constantinople. Although the fourteenth century marks a new beginning, especially in letters, sciences, arts, and intellectual life, the Roman Empire literally became a shadow of its former self, as the political and economic structures and the territory of the empire rapidly disintegrated and shrunk.

Declining population, increasing taxes, devaluation of the currency, devastation of the countryside, weakening of agriculture, impoverishment of the population, dramatic reduction of state financial resources, and excessive spending on foreign mercenaries formed prohibitive conditions and prerequisites for the recovery of lost grandeur. In addition, the split of the already shrunken empire into three states (Constantinople, Trebizond, and the Despotate of Epirus) completely weakened the once mighty central authority. Enemies almost surrounded Constantinople on all sides. Latin kingdoms dominated mainland Greece and the islands of the Greek archipelago as far as Cyprus. Trade and sea routes had for two centuries been in the hands of the great Italian cities. In the north, the raids of the Albanian tribes became more frequent, while the Serbs of Stefan Dusan invaded Macedonia and, with the fall of Serres in 1345, cut the Byzantine territory in half. The ambitious plan of the Serbian ruler was to create a Byzantine-Serbian state with Thessaloniki as its capital. The opportunity presented itself in the civil war among the Byzantines (1341–1347).^[1] In the East, the Turks of Asia Minor were stationed just across the European coast from Constantinople, waiting for the opportunity to advance westward. Kallipolis in the Dardanelles fell into the hands of the Ottoman Turks in an orgy of plundering and raiding. It was there that Gregory Palamas was captured and began his misadventure of captivity in Asia Minor.

The fourteenth century was the period of civil wars in Byzantium. The first civil war between Andronicus II Palaiologos and his grandson Andronicus III Palaiologos took place between 1321–1328. The second civil war broke out around the middle of the fourteenth century. Apart from the conflict between specific personalities, it was caused by the political and economic disintegration of the central power and the cohesive forces that constituted the very structure of the state. On the one side were the supporters of nine-year-old John V: Empress Anna Palaiologina (princess of Savoy), Duke Alexios Apokaukos, and Patriarch John Calekas. On the other was the powerful Grand Domestichos John Kantakouzenos. In the whirlwind of the new civil war, the Zealot revolt (1342–1349) broke out in Thessaloniki. Surprisingly, the Zealots^[2] allied themselves with the aristocratic landowners who supported the legitimacy of the Palaiologues on the throne of the empire rather than with Kantakouzenos who promoted the strengthening of central power.

However, in the last two hundred years of Byzantium’s lifespan, and especially in the fourteenth century, centered on Constantinople and Thessalonica,^[3] and despite the shrinkage of the empire and the multiple dangers that threatened it, an extremely intense intellectual and cultural renaissance developed. The main features of this renaissance were the intense flourishing of letters, arts and sciences, which never ceased in Byzantium, and of course the outstanding artistic movement, especially in painting, in the two characteristic schools of Palaiologian and Macedonian art.^[4] At the same time, hesychastic theology, with St Gregory Palamas at the forefront, and sacramental theology, with Nicolas Cabasilas as its main representative, expressed in a particular way the centuries long patristic tradition of the East, often in fruitful dialogue or even in opposition to Western theology. If the old glory of the Justinian period was emblematically expressed by the church of Agia Sophia with its splendour, opulence, light and graceful size, now the Monastery of Chora, small, elegant, simple but also full of artistic masterpieces, expresses a new dynamic radiance, which is inversely proportional to the complete weakening of the empire. In parallel with the last Byzantine Renaissance, as Steven Runciman^[5] called this period, another historical paradox appeared. Despite the territorial shrinkage of the empire, the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople continued to exert great influence even beyond the territories of the empire. The two main theological currents expressed by Gregory Palamas and Nicolas Cabasilas summarize the Orthodox Tradition of the Church. These theological currents of the fourteenth century will nourish and sustain the Orthodox Church spiritually in the adverse times ahead. Attempting to interpret this phenomenon, Russian scholars such as John Meyendorff^[6] and Gelian Prokhorov^[7] spoke of a ‘political hesychasm’ that extended to the Balkans and the Slavic North through a series of reforms carried out by hesychast patriarchs, and Nicolae Jorga^[8] already spoke of ‘Byzantium after Byzantium’. If the anti-Hesychasts turned one after another to the Christian West, like the last Byzantine emperors seeking to save the empire at any cost, the hesychasts became the exponents of the Orthodox commonwealth and the ‘New Rome’, extending the hesychastic tradition to Georgia, Russia, the Balkans, and Eastern Europe. The practice of hesychasm in the Balkans will curb the influence of the West and the Pope, restoring a sense of unity and cohesion within Orthodoxy and promoting, beyond hesychastic spirituality, key political and cultural priorities.

In this paper, our interest and focus will be on the person and work of St Gregory Palamas, in order to present his stance towards peace in an age of successive wars, intense changes, and upheavals that were slowly bringing a taste of modernity that was beginning to show its first tentative signs more obviously in the West and less so in the East.

St Gregory Palamas, a march in the midst of conflict

Gregory Palamas lived and developed his great theological teaching in a particularly turbulent time. In his time, the factor of the schism between Rome and Constantinople combined with the problem of the survival of the empire would shape an almost warlike atmosphere between East and West. Indeed, if we take into account the traumatic experience of the Francocracy, the intense anti-Latinism, the continuing Filioque controversy, the emergence of Unionists and anti-Unionists in Byzantium, the great geopolitical losses and strategic weaknesses of the empire, the ideas of a fully autonomous humanism from the theology of the Greek Fathers of the Church, in conjunction with a sterile and scholastic theology of repetition, unable to authentically express the Orthodox Tradition in its time, then we have the broader framework in which the theological work of Gregory Palamas appeared and developed. Although originally a monk and abbot, Gregory Palamas was not marginalized either in Byzantine society and imperial power or in the ecclesiastical hierarchy and monastic polity of his time. As archbishop of Thessaloniki, he would then become a leading figure in the theological events of his time and, ultimately, the hesychastic councils of the fourteenth century would undeniably vindicate his teaching as an anatomy, development, and recapitulation of the previous patristic theology. He and his hesychast disciples, assuming important positions in the ecclesiastical hierarchy, would play a key role in the last pre-Captivity revival of Orthodox theology, shaping the appropriate conditions and prerequisites for the historical survival of Orthodoxy against the Turkish danger, as well as for the expansion of hesychast theology and ascetic life in the Balkans and the Slavic North.

Gregory Palamas was born in 1296 in Constantinople, where his family fled from Asia Minor because of the Turkish invasion. His father, Constantine Palamas, would become a senator and pedagogue at the court of Andronicus II. The young Gregory, soon to be orphaned, would have the privilege of growing up in the imperial court and pursuing an excellent education at royal expense under the great scholar and politician Theodore Metochites. At the age of twenty, Palamas abandons the imperial court’s proposals for a career in public life and departs for monastic life on Mount Athos via the Papikion Mountains of Thrace. He initially lives as a monk at Megisti Lavra and the old Lavra’s Skete of Glossia. Due to frequent pirate raids by the Turks, he took refuge in Veroia and settled as a recluse in a hermitage by the river Aliakmonas, coming on Saturdays and Sundays to the community for Eucharistic communion and contact with his fellow monks. A little later and for a short time he would become abbot of the monastery of Esfigmenos in Athos. Returning to Thessaloniki, the hesychastic controversy broke out because of the positions of Barlaam the Calabrian,^[9] which continued with other anti-hesychastics such as Gregory Akindynos and Nikiforos Gregoras.

In Thessaloniki, confronted with the peculiar agnosticism and apophaticism of Barlaam, as well as with the attacks of the Calabrian monk on monastic asceticism and the mental prayer of the hesychasts, Gregory Palamas wrote his first works on the Holy Spirit and the Triads in Defense of the Holy Hesychasts. At the Council of Constantinople in 1341, Barlaam is condemned, but without fully vindicating Palamas. And whereas Barlaam returned to Italy in disappointment, a new civil war broke out, which would influence the continuation of the hesychast controversy. Gregory Palamas, although he was on friendly terms with Anna Palaiologina, became involved in the civil war because he was considered by the patriarch John Calekas to be a friend and supporter of the Grand Domestichos John Kantakouzenos. It is significant that during this period Palamas suffered a series of persecutions and spent most of the civil war in prison writing and arguing with various persons who visited him, according to the testimony of Philotheos Kokkinos.^[10] Patriarch John Calekas openly promoted the ‘conservative’ Gregory Akindynos and Palamas’ theological opponents in general. The victory of John Kantakouzenos, who becomes co-emperor, would result in new councils being held in Constantinople between 1347–1351, which would fully justify the hesychastic theology against the positions of Akindynos and the philosopher and historian Nikiforos Gregoras. In 1347, Gregory Palamas was elected Metropolitan of Thessaloniki, but in the general turmoil and disorder caused by the Zealots, the leaders of the city did not accept him at the time. During his stay on Mount Athos, Stefan Dusan attempted to win him over to occupy Thessaloniki. Gregory Palamas refused to cooperate. In 1350, after three and a half years, the people of Thessaloniki finally welcomed Palamas with enthusiasm. After the end of the Zealots’ rule, he entered Thessaloniki as a peacemaker with the city’s new elders, who travelled by boat to Lemnos, where Palamas had been a locum tenens, to accompany him out of honour. As metropolitan of Thessaloniki, Gregory Palamas would reframe his hesychast and dogmatic theology at the level of pastoral and liturgical ministry, leaving as a legacy the corpus of his Homilies, in which his biblical and patristic theology is coherently linked to his continuous attention to the spiritual edification of his flock.

The Homilies of the Archbishop of Thessaloniki render completely unfounded the positions that insist on interpreting hesychasm as a mystical movement of escape from the world, caused by anxiety for the survival of Byzantium with obvious signs of insecurity and social impoverishment. Hesychasm was not born in the fourteenth century as a circumstantial phenomenon but pre-exists and, already from the time of St Anthony the Great, it seals the Orthodox mystical tradition of the ascetic life, which remains particularly social and influential in the piety of the Byzantines. At the same time, the Homilies of the hesychast theologian show not only the pastoral popularization of hesychasm and its appropriate application to the wider life of the Church in the world, but also the complete theological coincidence and concordance of Gregory Palamas with the teachings of Nicolas Cabasilas—especially with regard to the absolutely common sacramental and eucharistic background of these great theologians and Fathers of the Orthodox Church in the fourteenth century.

In 1354–1355, the Archbishop of Thessaloniki travelled to Constantinople, mediating peacefully between Kantakouzenos and the Palaiologians so that a definitive peace could finally be achieved in their conflict. Passing through Kallipolis, he was captured by the Turks and was taken prisoner in Asia Minor. Living in the arduous conditions of captivity and being shuffled between Prussa (Bursa) and Nicaea, Gregory Palamas dialogued peacefully with Muslim theologians and the Chiones, an Islamised group of scholars of Christian or Jewish origin, handing down to us excellent examples of this pre-modern inter-religious dialogue on the issue of peaceful coexistence of religions and the avoidance of intolerance. After a whole year of captivity, Gregory Palamas would be released by the Turks on payment of an exorbitant ransom, probably by Stefan Dusan or John Kantakouzenos. After four years of peaceful pastoral ministry, Gregory Palamas died at the age of 63 in November 1359.

‘On peace towards one another’

We will focus mainly on the first inaugural address of the Archbishop of Thessaloniki, which he delivered in 1350, three days after his arrival in the city, following the cessation of the Zealot movement. In a mass procession through the city that ended at the Church of Agia Sophia, Gregory Palamas won over with his message even those who had rebelled against and opposed his enthronement.^[11] This homily contains an excellent theological and political approach to peace and was delivered at a historical juncture that clearly showed the successive internal and external dangers for waning Byzantium. Above all, however, this homily of St Gregory Palamas is of great interest to us in order to reconstruct elements and examples for our own time and experience, for nowadays Orthodox Christians are currently engaged in a violent and fratricidal war, since behind the military conflicts in Ukraine an ideological war is raging, which is attempting to instrumentalize Orthodoxy and place it within the grip of nationalism and the thirst for secular domination.

The Archbishop of Thessaloniki starts from the fact that all human beings are brothers and sisters as children of the common Father. All human beings are in the image of God and have a common mother, the Church, whose head and leader is Christ. In the body of Christ, which is the Church, the God-Man Christ is not only God but also a brother and father, who unites us into one body and makes us members of one another and of himself. Christ calls people brothers and sisters and becomes their father in the Church as he regenerates every human being by the divine grace of baptism. Referring to the Apostle Paul, Gregory Palamas speaks of the Christocentric and the unity in Spirit of the one body based on the Holy Eucharist. Throughout the whole breadth of the homily and in the rest of his works, Gregory Palamas’ teaching on the Church never falls into ideology, into a Byzantine nationalism, or into an Orthodox culturalism. If among humanist scholars there is a strong revival of Hellenism in the fourteenth century, among the hesychast theologians traditionally the ecumenical dimension of the theology of the Greek Fathers of the Church is expressed. In this first contact and homily of Gregory Palamas as archbishop to the Thessalonians, after seven years of incredible anarchy, pillage and terrorism, there are no references to opponents and perpetrators or dividing lines for victors and losers but only exhortations for peace and reconciliation for all.^[12]

For the Archbishop of Thessaloniki, the cause of evil is the dissolution of love, which is the work of the devil and can extend from individuals to the common things of the city. By dividing people of the same race into rival sections, this demonic manifestation of evil causes civil strife and unrest. Ultimately, in civil war the city itself fights and opposes itself. In this confrontation, the brutal and the vicious predominate, who with fury and inhumanity engage in plunder, robbery, and murder.^[13] Gregory Palamas not only seeks the cause of the disease but also suggests its treatment. Common sin, by driving out love, is the cause that turns people into enemies. When love is completely chilled, then God’s grace is also removed from people.^[14] The Archbishop of Thessaloniki uses the eloquent example of the lampstand. The soul of every human being is like a lamp. Its oil is charity and its wick is love. This love is warmed and sustained by the grace of the Holy Spirit. When charity, the doing of good works, ceases, and love necessarily grows cold and the grace of the Holy Spirit is removed from man. Lack of love leads to sin, and sin leads to unrest and civil war and all kinds of evil. The absence of love turns humans into demonic beasts. Man becomes misanthropic and homicidal and ultimately an adversary to the Life-Giving Christ.^[15]

Gregory Palamas, as a bishop and ambassador of the peace of Christ, calls all to return to the way of the Gospel of Christ, which means reconciliation, recognition of the corporal and spiritual kinship between all persons, and a return to Christ and the grace of the Holy Spirit. Evil is overcome by good, by love, by which love of God is also acquired. Those who do not love their brothers and sisters cannot have love for God. The role of the bishop as pastor is to bring together the scattered and warring parties by preaching peace, removing the disease of hatred and sickliness from the body of the Church of Christ.^[16]

As a bishop, Gregory Palamas asks everyone for cooperation in deeds for peace. Ultimately, peace is Christ himself who abolished the wall of enmity by his death on the cross. The whole work of his divine economy lies precisely in peace, and that is why he became flesh.^[17] The legacy of his earthly economy is the preservation of peace, which is the love and unity of all. If we lose peace, we lose our adoption by God and as the cause of hatred, enmity, and mischief we will be excluded from his Kingdom.^[18] Gregory Palamas concludes by pointing out what is the heart and the quintessence of life in Christ, the vision of God and the deification of man. In the biblical texts, peace is a prerequisite for the vision of God in the future century of the Kingdom of the Holy Trinity.^[19]

In the pastoral homilies of St Gregory Palamas, his hesychast theology is expanded to include also the political dimension, certainly in its pre-modern version. Mystical theology does not constitute an escape from history and everyday life, but on the contrary, it organically includes and connects the ecclesial experience of theosis with the ethos of the polis and the politics of a structured community of people. Long before the emergence of modernity or modern anti-war movements and peace organizations, Gregory Palamas as bishop of Thessaloniki articulated responsible public discourse, expressing the theological conditions and ecclesiological framework for personal and political peace—and that in a state that for almost seven years had been living in an unbelievable regime of plunder, intolerance, and murder in an extremely turbulent political and geopolitical era. Oddly enough, the ascetic theological tradition contains the caring for the social and political element and when combined with the pastoral ministry of a hesychast bishop it can bring out its full dimensions, and even in conjunction with ecclesiology, which is the predominantly political and social dimension of the Church. It is also significant that even in the fourteenth century in Byzantium important scholars, such as Nicolas Cabasilas^[20] and Demetrius Kydonis, were engaged in theology and politics, while John Kantakouzenos himself, after his abdication from his reign, pursued a monastic life and wrote as the monk Ioasaph.^[21] The combination of theology and politics has a long tradition in Byzantine society and culture.

Mystical theology and politics

Aristotle Papanikolaou, in an extremely interesting study on the relationship between Orthodox mystical theology and politics, speaks of the political dimension of theosis as the transfiguration of man, which has concrete consequences in the historical and social field of political life.^[22] The mystical can also be political; the transfiguration of man in Christ does not constitute an escape from history, society, politics and culture, but takes on every aspect of human life and society. The question, of course, is whether the political dimension of theosis as the ideal of life in Christ can meet modern man, the modern pluralistic world and culture as it emerged through the course of modernity in the West, or is it merely an exotic image of Orthodoxy, which insists on living in a pre-modern social, cultural, and political context, constantly recalling the Byzantine paradigm of a closed society in which the political was inseparable from the theological element. In other words, is the political and social dimension of theosis compatible with the modern liberal and pluralistic world and with the secularized conception of the public sphere, or is it a situation that personally concerns the mystery of salvation without implications for the political and social ethos? Possibly, we are facing new challenges for the creative re-emergence of Christianity in the forefront of history in a more meaningful and in any case, a non-authoritarian way. The public sphere as a space of public and open deliberation is also a challenge for Orthodox theology to move from its protected and inactive position as the bearer of national, cultural, and traditional values and to become once again the salt of people’s lives and culture, bearing its witness publicly and on equal terms in the contemporary pluralistic world. Indeed, a pluralistic and dialectical outlook of the public sphere can prevent any instrumentalization of the Christian faith through political power.

It may be necessary to re-explore elements of political and social theology across the whole breadth of the patristic tradition and to attempt a dynamic updating and adaptation to contemporary political and social conditions. We must also explore aspects of political theology in modern Orthodox thought and pastoral practice, possibly starting from Russian religious thought (Komiakov, Solovyov, Bulgakov, Berdyaev), from Fr Georges Florovsky’s vision of the need for a neo-patristic synthesis in Orthodox theology, and certainly utilizing the theology of the person, otherness, and eucharistic ecclesiology, which clearly entail implications for common and organized life. Indeed, these Orthodox approaches seem to be closer and more relevant to the democratic and liberal principles of contemporary pluralistic societies than to the totalitarian and autarchic Christian empires of the past. In our time, Orthodox theology needs to be open and to dialogue with the contemporary world and culture, and not shut itself up in self-sufficiency, historical inertia, and the introversion of other times and political situations where politics and theology were necessarily confined. With a courageous interpretive stance, Orthodox theology can detect in the principles of freedom, diversity, equality, peace, justice, dignity, human rights, protection and care of the natural environment, the avoidance of violence and dialogue, elements of its own theological and ecclesiological tradition and contribute to these achievements of modernity, disentangling any individualism or their unequivocal linkage with the liberal market economy and the geopolitics of power in modern mass democratic societies. Above all, however, theology must contribute to the effort of dialogue and to give meaning to personal and social life, since contemporary pluralistic societies are suffering from a tendency towards practical nihilism, constant deconstruction, lack of social solidarity, cohesion and authentic identity. In the post-modern and post-secularized society, there is an increasing number of voices calling for the return of religion to the public sphere as a source of meaning and social cohesion for the very existence of the liberal and democratic state.

The return to the Fathers and the problem of ‘political hesychasm’

Following the breakdown of communism, the global dominance of the liberal economy, the rise of political Islam and the emergence of various types of religious fundamentalism, the phenomenon of the so-called clash of civilizations between East and West is emerging. In post-Soviet Russia, the ideological vacuum inherited from communism is being filled by an attempt to reconstruct an Orthodox political theology. Initially, the work of the Russian philosopher, Nicolas Berdyaev was enlisted.^[23] It seems that the political use or abuse of Nicolas Berdyaev was not sufficient to form a modern Russian anti-Westernism. This task was now taken over by the Eurasian ideology of the ‘Russian World’.

Recently, Andrei Siskov^[24] has argued that the Russian intellectuals who participated in the Russian religious renaissance of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries shaped the axes and conditions of a new relationship between politics and Orthodox theology, beyond the Byzantine model of consonance. Personalities such as Nicolas Berdyaev, Fr Sergius Bulgakov, Semyon Frank, and Mother Maria Skombtsova, shattering the idols of the Church’s subordination to the state, offered with their lives and work new, authentic, and promising models of Orthodox political theology. Andrei Siskov draws these thoughts from Paul Gavriluk’s book, ‘Fr. Georges Florovsky and the Russian Religious Renaissance’. In this extremely interesting work, it is argued that Fr Georges Florovsky’s program and idea of the ‘neo-patristic synthesis’ systematically undermined the multifaceted liberal political current of the religious renaissance, calling it simply ‘religious philosophy’, which contained heretical tendencies.

For Andrei Siskov, neo-patristic theology, by sacralizing the Byzantine past of Orthodoxy, signified a kind of untimely ‘return to the Fathers’, displaying anti-historical forms such as ‘political hesychasm, Byzantinism and the theory of “Moscow as the Third Rome” (in its modern version)’. Indeed, what is happening in Russia now, Andrei Siskov argues, is a restoration of imperial power with Byzantine overtones. These critical remarks seem to be vindicated, as other scholars, such as Vladimir Petrunin, argue that the political hesychasm of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries returned to post-Soviet Russia and was expressed through the text on the Social Doctrine of the Church of Russia (2000), particularly in terms of church-state relations and the fight against Western influence, as Byzantine hesychasm once did in the fourteenth century. According to Vladimir Petrunin, Orthodox culture is proclaimed as the bulwark of the new ideology of the Russian state against the secularized West. ‘Orthodoxy alone is the guarantee of Russia’s independent existence in the modern world. Today the Moscow Patriarchate is the one and only organization that has maintained its millennial continuity throughout Russian history’.^[25] The political history and fall of Byzantium remain a great lesson for modern Russia. Byzantium lost because its political leaders and humanist scholars submitted to the demands of the West. The Church, retaining its independence from the Emperor, opposed the West and thus Orthodoxy was saved. According to Vladimir Petrunin, the Social Doctrine of the Moscow Patriarchate clearly manifests the opposition of the Russian Orthodox Church to the liberalization, democratization, and secularization of the Russian state. Petrunin uses this ecclesial text to support an ideological and domestic political agenda that perceives the Russian Orthodox Church as the main political and ideological force in the Russian state. Vladimir Petrunin believes that the Russian Orthodox Church is legitimized to freely articulate its moral and social principles in the public sphere of a pluralistic society, as Habermas^[26] would have wanted. However, as Kristina Stöckl^[27] points out, the Russian Church is not merely dialoguing, acknowledging the pluralism of the public sphere, but identifying itself with the public sphere of Russia. From this point of view, the Church can coercively list its support to the state, since it effectively denies the rest of civil society the opportunity to participate equally in public debate. Kristina Stöckl rightly concludes that for Petrunin the text of the Social Doctrine ultimately expresses a neo-Byzantine, anti-liberal, and anti-Western agenda, in which political hesychasm is ideologically upgraded and instrumentalized by the Moscow Patriarchate.^[28] We note, however, that these positions of Petrunin cannot be based on Meyendorff’s work on Palamas’ hesychasm, but are ideological acrobatics in an extreme attempt to instrumentalize and essentially misrepresent the theological teaching of the hesychast theologian.

Andrei Siskov believes that somehow, the ‘neo-patristic synthesis’ has brought back the monastic spirit of traditional ascetic Orthodoxy, which is indifferent to the great moral dilemmas in the modern world, re-sacralizing political power in Russia and often feeding a rampant conspiracy theory. This situation has eroded consciences to such an extent that fundamentalist and zealous groups now within the walls are questioning even the orthodoxy of younger theologians working with the hermeneutical principles of the ‘neo-patristic synthesis’.^[29]

It may be that the aforementioned issues are being raised with intensity in the context of the post-Soviet Russian reality. However, addressing them at the pan-Orthodox level need not be done through a process of rejecting or obscuring the important work of Fr Georges Florovsky and the ‘neo-patristic synthesis’ as a whole, in order to bring out the current of a more political and social Orthodoxy. It is important to emphasize that Fr Georges Florovsky’s work completely deconstructs the ideological confrontation between East and West, speaking of two Churches that are Siamese sisters, considering that the problems of the West today need to become ours as well in order to make their solution possible, and that the audience of Orthodox theologians should be the whole world and not just the East.^[30] After all, Florovsky, despite his contrasts and differences with the leaders of the Russian religious renaissance, attempted to stand united by extending a hand of friendship to its leaders in his 1948 speech at the opening of St Vladimir’s in New York, praising, among other things, Berdyaev and the work of the philosophers.^[31] Beyond barren antagonisms and sterile ideological debates, through a genuine, critical and creative dialogue of all the trends and currents of Orthodox theology of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, we ought to move forward and finally develop a contemporary and ecumenically fuller example of updated and discerning theology with our difficult and complex times.

The need for reconciliation and peace among the Orthodox

It is a fact that nationalism, isolationism, and the self-sufficiency of the local Orthodox Churches formed a ‘closed’ and external synodality, in which each local or national Orthodox Church seemed to have no need for a relationship and communion with the other Orthodox Churches. Worse still, during the last preconciliar conferences and preparations for the Pan-Orthodox Synod in Crete in 2016, a clear tension between Constantinople and Moscow emerged. The issue of autocephaly, which seemed to be the subject of consensus and unanimous decision of the local Orthodox Churches, was eventually excluded from the agenda of the Synod. The Patriarchate of Moscow, while having endorsed all the synodal texts for discussion and approval, ultimately did not participate in the Holy and Great Synod because it did not recognize the primacy of the Ecumenical Patriarch in the presidency of the Synod, including three other local Orthodox Churches. The Pan-Orthodox Synod of Crete, after six decades of diligent theological and ecclesiastical preparation, revealed that the unity and synodality of the Orthodox had been damaged in practice. The epilogue of this tragic outcome did not stop here. It continued with the failure to reach an agreement on the autocephaly of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church and the creation of a unilateral schism by the Moscow Patriarchate towards the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, the Church of Greece, the Patriarchate of Alexandria and the Church of Cyprus in retaliation for the recognition of Ukrainian autocephaly by the Ecumenical Patriarchate. Moscow is now pressuring the other local Orthodox Churches not to recognize the Autocephalous Orthodox Church of Ukraine, threatening those Churches that have done so with retaliation, and is already penetrating the Patriarchate of Alexandria by creating a Russian Exarchate on the canonical territory of another Church, thus dangerously undermining pan-Orthodox unity. Is it possible to detect in this attitude of the Russian Orthodox Church elements of patristic or hesychastic theology or even of a political hesychasm?

The geopolitical and geo-ecclesiological parameters of this crisis culminated in the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and in a continuous and ruthless war between Orthodox brethren. The justification and argumentation of this war on the part of the Moscow Patriarchate goes back to Russia’s alleged right to defend the unified ‘Russian World’, considering Ukraine to be an inalienable part of this ‘Russian World’.^[32] In addition, the close cooperation of the Moscow Patriarchate with the Russian political regime considers the ‘Russian World’ as a wider Eurasian cultural tradition to be collectively opposed to the culture of the West, which, with its eroded values and priorities for human rights and the rights of various minorities, is consistently the ideological opponent of modern Russia.^[33] After the catastrophic invasion and bloodshed in Ukraine, Orthodox Christians around the world face the difficult question: How can a nation, the majority of which embraces Orthodox Christianity, justify attacking and killing the inhabitants of a fraternal nation, almost all of whom share the same faith? Certainly, the ideology of the ‘Russian World’, like every ethno-racial ideology in all ages, in all nations, and in all cultures, can have nothing to do with the Gospel and the Church of Christ.

Despite the geopolitical and geo-ecclesiastical parameters of this crisis and despite the adversities of this fratricidal war, we hope that, once the current tensions subside, the synodal ethos will be revived through the initiative and creativity of the local Orthodox Churches. We do believe, however, that efforts to restore unity and cooperation among the local Orthodox Churches are possible and that inspiring initiatives should be undertaken that could bear fruit once the frightening intensity of the war has subsided. The witness and unity of the Orthodox Church in today’s world is at stake. Nonetheless, in accordance with the optimistic message of the Holy and Great Synod, which is addressed ‘to the Orthodox people and to every man of good will’, we hope that the synodal spirit will be revived vigorously and authentically in the twenty-first century on a pan-Orthodox level. Nevertheless, we need to work vigorously and decisively to inaugurate new processes of authentic synodality as an inspired theological and prophetic witness to the faith and life of the Church in the contemporary world. There is a need, therefore, for the synodal spirit and contemporary theological witness to be revived at all levels of the life of the Church. We have a long and important task ahead of us.

 

^[1]  See George Christos Soulis, The Serbs and Byzantium During the Reign of Tsar Stephen Dušan (1331–1355) and His Successors, Dumbarton Oaks Library and Collection, 1984.

 

^[2]  Yannis Smarnakis, “Thessaloniki during the Zealots’ Revolt (1342-1350): Power, Political Violence and the Transformation of the Urban Space”, Scandinavian Journal of Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies 4/2018, pp. 119-147.

 

^[3]  Oreste Tafrali, Thessalonique au quatorzième siècle, Topographie de Thessalonique, Thessalonique des origines au XIVe siècle, reprint of the Institute of Balkan Studies, Thessaloniki 1993.

 

^[4]  For the question of the effect of hesychasm on art, see the work of Anita Strezova, Hesychasm and Art. The Appearance of New Iconographic Trends in Byzantine and Slavic Lands in the 14th and 15th Centuries, Australian National University Press, Canberra 2014.

 

^[5]  Steven Runciman, The Last Byzantine Renaissance, Cambridge University Press 1970.

 

^[6]  For John Meyendorff, ‘political hesychasm’ is defined as follows: ‘Finally, one finds today the concept of “political hesychasm”, designating a social, cultural, and political ideology, which originated in Byzantium and had a decisive impact on social and artistic development among the Southern Slavs and Russians’, see John Meyendorff, Byzantine Hesychasm: historical, theological and social problems, Variorum Reprints London 1974, pp. 8-9 of the Introduction. See also, John Meyendorff, Byzantium and the Rise of Russia: A Study of Byzantino-Russian Relations in the Fourteenth Century, St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, New York 1989. On the newer uses of ‘political hesychasm’ in Modern Greek theology and ideology see, Daniel Payne, The revival of political hesychasm in greek orthodox thought: A study of the hesychast basis of thought of John S. Romanides and Christos Yannaras, PhD Thesis approved by the J. M. Dawson Institute of Church-State Studies, Baylor University, Baylor 2006. https://baylor-ir.tdl.org/bitstream/handle/2104/4847/daniel_payne_phd.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y. Accessed July 19, 2023.

 

^[7]  Gelian Prokhorov, “Isikhazm i obscestvennaja mysV v vostocnoj Evrope v XlV-m veke. Trudy otdela drevne-russkoj literatury”, vol. 21, Akademija Nauk SSSR Moskva 1968.

 

^[8]  Nicolae Iorga, Byzance après Byzance, Continuation de l’«Histoire de la vie byzantine», Edition de l’Institut d’Études Byzantines, Bucarest 1935, εκδ. Balland 1992.

 

^[9]  See John Meyendorff, “Un mauvais théologien de l’unité au quatorzième siècle: Barlaam le Calabrais”, in L’église et les églises, 1054–1954, vol. 2, pp. 47–65, Chevetogne 1955. Robert Sinkewicz, “A new interpretation for the first episode in the Controversy between Barlaam the Calabrian and Gregory Palamas”, The Journal of Theological Studies 31, no. 2/1980, pp. 489-500. “The Doctrine of the Knowledge of God in the Early Writings of Barlaam the Calabrian”, Medieval Studies 44/1982, pp. 181–242.

 

^[10]  Filotheos Kokkinos, Enkomion to the Life of our Father among the Saints Gregory Palamas 6, 32, ed. P. Christou, “Greek Fathers of the Church”, Gregory Palamas Patristic Publications, Thessaloniki 1984, p. 274.

 

^[11]  Filotheos Kokkinos, Enkomion to the Life of our Father among the Saints Gregory Palamas 6, 32, ibid., p. 312.

 

^[12]  Gregory Palamas, Homily 1, 1–2 [On Peace With one Another, Delivered three days after his arrival in Thessaloniki], ed. Vasilios Pseftongas, in Grigoriou Palama Syggrammata, Volume VI, pp. 39–40.

 

^[13]  Gregory Palamas, Homily 1, 3-4, ibid., pp. 40–41.

 

^[14]  Gregory Palamas, Homily 1, 5-6, ibid., pp. 41–42.

 

^[15]  Gregory Palamas, Homily 1, 7, ibid., pp. 42–43.

 

^[16]  Gregory Palamas, Homily 1, 8-9, ibid., p. 43.

 

^[17]  Gregory Palamas, Homily 11, 26, ibid., pp. 145–146.

 

^[18]  Gregory Palamas, Homily 1, 10-11, ibid., pp. 43–44.

 

^[19]  Gregory Palamas, Homily 1, 12-14; 12, 15, ibid., pp. 42–43, 172.

 

^[20]  See Eugenia Russell, “Nicholas Kavasilas Chamaëtos (c. 1322–c. 1390): A Unique Voice Amongst his Contemporaries”, Nottingham Medieval Studies 54/2010, σσ. 121-135. Myrra Lot-Borodine, Un maître de la spiritualité byzantine au quatorzième siècle, Nicolas Cabasilas, Paris 1958. Ihor Ševčenko, “Nicolas Cabasilas’ ‘Anti-zealot’ Discourse: A Reinterpretation”, Dumbarton Oaks Papers 11/1957, pp. 79–171. Jean Vafiadis, L’humanisme chrétien de Nicolas Cabasilas: L’épanouissement de la personne humaine dans le Christ, Strasbourg, 1963.

 

^[21]  Günther Weiss, Joannes Kantakuzenos-Aristocrat, Staatsmann, Kaiser and Mönch-in der Gesellschaftsentwicklung von Byzanz im 14. Jahrhundert, Wiesbaden 1969.

 

^[22]  Aristotle Papanikolaou, The Mystical as Political: Democracy and Non-Radical Orthodoxy, University of Notre Dame Press, 2012.

 

^[23]  See Michel Eltchaninoff, Dans la tête de Vladimir Poutine, Actes Sud, 2022. Looking for a modern path to Russia between the Tsarist and Soviet periods, in an effort to trace the relevance of Nicolas Berdyaev to modern Russia, conferences and presentations of the work of the Russian philosopher are often organized in Moscow and various Russian cities, and there is a permanent forum entitled ‘Berdyaev Readings’. The idea of organizing the Berdyaev Readings’ forum came from the Institute of Socio-Economic and Political Research (ISEPR) after President Putin’s Speech to the Federal Assembly of Russia in December 2012.

 

^[24]  For these positions of Andrei Syskov, see https://publicorthodoxy.org/2021/02/09/the-navalny-protests-and-orthodoxys-a-political-theology/

 

^[25]  Vladimir Petrunin, Politiceskij isikhazm i ego tradicii v social’noj koncepcii Moskovskogo Patriarkha, Sankt Peterburg: Aletheia, 2009, p. 82.

 

^[26]  See his classic work “Religion in the Public Sphere”, European Journal of Philosophy 14:1/2006, pp. 1-25. See also, his articles, “What is Meant by a ‘Post-Secular Society’? A Discussion on Islam in Europe: The Faltering Project”, tr. C. Cronin, Polity Press, Cambridge 2009, pp. 59–77. “Secularism’s Crisis of Faith: Notes on Post-Secular Society”, New perspectives quarterly 25/2008, pp. 17–29. “Religion in the Public Sphere: Cognitive Presuppositions for the Public Use of Reason by Religious and Secular Citizens”, in Between Naturalism and Religion: Political Essays, by Jürgen Habermas, Polity Press, Cambridge 2008, pp. 114–148. “The Boundary between Faith and Knowledge: On the Reception and Contemporary Importance of Kant’s Philosophy of Religion”, in Between Naturalism and Religion: Political Essays, ibid., pp. 209–248.

 

^[27]  Kristina Stöckl, «Political Hesychasm? Vladimir Petrunin’s Neo-Byzantine Interpretation of the Social Doctrine of the Russian Orthodox Church», Studies in East European Thought, March 2010, Vol. 62, No. 1, Polish Studies in Russian Religious Philosophy, pp. 125–133, here p. 130.

 

^[28]  See Kristina Stöckl, “Political Hesychasm? Vladimir Petrunin’s Neo-Byzantine Interpretation of the Social Doctrine of the Russian Orthodox Church”, ibid., pp. 131–132.

 

^[29]  See in particular the article by Matthew Baker “‘Theology Reasons’-in History: Neo-Patristic Synthesis and the Renewal of Theological Rationality”, Θεολογία (Theologia) 4/2010, pp. 81–118.

 

^[30]  See the classic work of Georges Florovsky, Christianity and Culture, Collected Works 2, Belmont-Massachusetts 1974, chap. “Antinomies of Christian History: Empire and Desert” especially pp. 77 and 92-100. Florovsky concludes his study as follows: ‘Byzantium had failed, grievously failed, to establish an unambiguous and adequate relationship between the Church and the larger Commonwealth. It did not succeed in unlocking the gate of the Paradise Lost. Yet nobody else has succeeded, either. The gate is still locked. The Byzantine key was not a right one. So were all other keys, too. And probably there is no earthly or historical key for that ultimate lock. There is but an eschatological key, the true “Key of David.” Yet Byzantium was for centuries wrestling, with fervent commitment and dedication, with a real problem. And in our own days, when we are wrestling with the same problem, we may get some more light for ourselves through an impartial study of the Eastern experiment, both in its hope and in its failure’.

 

^[31]  Βλ. Georges Florovsky, “The Legacy and the Task of Orthodox Theology”, Anglican Theological Review 31/1949, pp. 65–71.

 

^[32]  See the Declaration on the “Russian World” (Russkii mir) Teaching (March 13, 2022): ‘The speeches of President Vladimir Putin and Patriarch Kirill (Gundiaev) of Moscow (Moscow Patriarchate) have repeatedly invoked and developed Russian world ideology over the last 20 years. In 2014, when Russia annexed the Crimea and initiated a proxy war in the Donbas area of Ukraine, right up until the beginning of the full-fledged war against Ukraine and afterwards, Putin and Patriarch Kirill have used Russian world ideology as a principal justification for the invasion. The teaching states that there is a transnational Russian sphere or civilization, called Holy Russia or Holy Rus’, which includes Russia, Ukraine and Belarus (and sometimes Moldova and Kazakhstan), as well as ethnic Russians and Russian-speaking people throughout the world. It holds that this “Russian world” has a common political centre (Moscow), a common spiritual centre (Kyiv as the “mother of all Rus’’), a common language (Russian), a common church (the Russian Orthodox Church, Moscow Patriarchate), and a common patriarch (the Patriarch of Moscow), who works in “symphony” with a common president/national leader (Putin) to govern this Russian world, as well as upholding a common distinctive spirituality, morality, and culture’. See the full text of this Declaration at the following link: https://publicorthodoxy.org/2022/03/13/a-declaration-on-the-russian-world-russkii-mir-teaching/

 

^[33]  See the Declaration on the “Russian World” (Russkii mir) Teaching: ‘Against this “Russian world” (so the teaching goes) stands the corrupt West, led by the United States and Western European nations, which has capitulated to “liberalism”, “globalization”, “Christianophobia”, “homosexual rights” promoted in gay parades, and “militant secularism”. Over and against the West and those Orthodox who have fallen into schism and error (such as Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew and other local Orthodox churches that support him) stands the Moscow Patriarchate, along with Vladimir Putin, as the true defenders of Orthodox teaching, which they view in terms of traditional morality, a rigorist and inflexible understanding of tradition, and veneration of Holy Russia’, on the ibid. website ‘Public Orthodoxy’.