Gregory Palamas

14th century Byzantine Greek cleric and theologian

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Lived 1296–1359, aged 63

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Era
1296–1359
Aged 63

Summary

Updated 2026-06-09

A 14th-century monk who claimed you could see the same light the apostles saw on the mountain — and that it wasn't created, wasn't metaphor, but God's own energy breaking through. The claim split Byzantine theology for two decades and still defines how Eastern Orthodoxy thinks about whether humans can actually touch the divine.

Biography

About

Gregory Palamas was born around 1296 in the Byzantine Empire and became a monk on Mount Athos, where hesychast contemplatives pursued inner stillness and mystical vision. Between 1336 and 1341 he sparred with the Italo-Greek scholar Barlaam, who mocked the monks' practices and denied that the light of the Transfiguration was uncreated; Palamas countered that God's essence remains unknowable but His energies — grace, will, that light — are real, uncreated, and accessible. Two more controversies followed, with the monk Gregory Akindynos through 1347 and the philosopher Gregoras until 1355, each…

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In their own words

Sourced, dated quotes from Gregory Palamas

Gregory Palamas

said1344

The soul completely dominated by its desire for spiritual instruction is never sated.

— p. 295

Gregory Palamas

said1344

As the separation of the soul from the body is the death of the body, so the separation of God from the soul is the death of the soul. And this death of the soul is the true death.

— p. 296

Gregory Palamas

saidundated

Anyone who considers himself guilty before God and repents must believe that the reproach and contempt of others towards him is just and to be endured.

— Homilies (Mount Tabor Publishing), p. 13

Gregory Palamas

saidundated

A great teacher has said that after the fall our inner being naturally adapts itself to outward forms.

— p. 338

Gregory Palamas

saidundated

The summit of evil, the crime most natural to the devil, pride, was born of knowledge. But if this is so, how can it be possible that all the passions result from ignorance?

— p. 33

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