Holy Resurrection Greek Orthodox Church
  • Home
  • About
    • Clergy
    • Parish Info
    • Visitors
    • Inquirers
    • Our Faith >
      • Introduction
      • House of God
      • Worship
      • Liturgy
      • Sacraments
      • Special Services
      • Teachings
      • Spirituality
      • History
      • The Church
    • Metropolis
    • Links
  • Events
  • Calendar
  • Stewardship
  • Media
    • Videos
    • Photos
    • Sermons
    • Texts
    • Newsletter
  • Ministries
    • Care Ministry
    • Children's Ministry
    • Prison Ministry
    • Cathecumen Program
    • Blessing Bags
    • Missions Possible
  • Blog
  • Contact
    • Electronic Directory
    • Letters of Good Standing

2nd Sunday of Lent-St Gregory Palamas

3/28/2016

 
For modern western Christians (who typically have very little exposure to Orthodox Christianity), it’s often difficult to grasp the nature of the divide between east and west. In my experience, most reflexively tend to reduce the differences in their mind to being relatively superficial or inessential. But the divide runs much deeper than most tend to realize.

One way to help westerners glimpse the nature of the divide is by shedding light on the paradigmatic battle between the heretic Barlaam and St. Gregory Palamas in the fourteenth century. Because this event took place in the post-schism east, it is especially absent from western Christian consciousness, yet it highlights some of the most significant and fundamental issues that divide east from west and—I would say, along with the Orthodox Church—truth from error.

Metropolitan Hierotheos Vlachos succinctly lays out the issue at the heart of the controversy:
Barlaam maintained that one could reach God through philosophy and conjecture, while St. Gregory Palamas, having experienced the actual road that leads to the knowledge of God, upheld the Orthodox view that it is only through purity that one can see God. (St. Gregory Palamas as a Hagiorite, p. 46)

Those who live purified lives—through a life of asceticism and noetic prayer, sustained and sanctified by the sacraments, in obedience to Christ through his Church—and are thereby granted to see the Uncreated Light of God (Matt. 5:8), in turn nourish the Church with the truth that has been revealed to them, and this wisdom is transmitted within the living tradition of the Orthodox Church. Contrast this approach with the scholasticism that dominates Roman Catholic theology—especially since Aquinas—and which formed the very foundations of the Reformation (e.g. Sola Scriptura), and you begin to see how deep the divide is. This divergence is manifested in the west today in the supremacy of the historical-critical method in Biblical exegesis, along with the submitting of all theological validity to the realm of discursive reason and “scientific” or quasi-scientific methods of inquiry.

Some might point to certain Roman Catholic saints, or holiness movements within Protestantism—spurred by the likes of John Wesley or Jonathan Edwards—which perhaps acknowledge the primacy of purifying the heart—of holiness—in knowing God. While I would applaud such insight from western theologians and western saints where it occurs, separated from the wellspring of the life of the Church, and with epistemological and doctrinal foundations that are still rooted in scholasticism, this truth has only ever been fleetingly and dimly glimpsed in the post-schism west. The precise method for success is handed down by those who have attained the light, and it can’t be stumbled upon in its fullness apart from that living tradition.

Met. Hierotheos also notes, writing about St. Gregory’s thought in distinction from Barlaam’s:
The witness of the saints is not intellectual and conjectural, but empirical… Because they have freed their nous from reasoning, passions and environmental conditions, the nous has been illuminated by divine Grace and guided to the vision of God. (St. Gregory Palamas as a Hagiorite, pg. 29)
With such being the conditions for seeing God—and therefore for true knowledge about God—these are the means by which all the great Orthodox Saints obtained deification.
​
Founded on principles foreign to the apostolic, patristic, living tradition of the Church, Barlaam’s approach to theology necessarily ends in agnosticism. Founded on Christ, the Apostles, and the undivided witness of the Orthodox Church, the teaching of St. Gregory Palamas provides the only way to come into direct, living contact with the “energies” of God—which are God himself.

Comments are closed.

    Fr. Steve's Blog

    Fr. Steve updates the church blog monthly on pertinent topics. ​
    Picture

    Archives

    March 2023
    November 2022
    September 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2017
    June 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015

    RSS Feed

Navigate

Home
About
Events​
Calendar
Stewardship
Media
Links
Blog
​Contact

Contact

P: 503.877.3037
E: Contact

Please Join us!

All are welcome to join us for a service. We invite you to come and experience ancient Christianity located right here in Salem, OR. 

© COPYRIGHT 2015. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.