St. Gregory Palamas and Hesychasm

"Today we will be speaking about St. Gregory Palamas and the essence of hesychasm. The Council of Constantinople in 1351, which took place 650 years ago, clearly and definitively affirmed the experience and theology of hesychasm. The first such council had met ten years earlier, in 1341, at which Palamas and his Athonite monks presented the Hagioritic Tome, in which they set forth the essence of their experience and of their theological confession against Barlaam. Later, in 1347, another Council met, this time against Akindynos; by then Barlaam had already left and become a cardinal, a bishop of the Pope, after which he took up the fight against hesychast theology.

So, concerning the theological experience and justification of hesychasm:

Hesychasm, of course, is not a new phenomenon. You will find it in the book of Archbishop Basil (Krivoshein) as well as in that of the Russian Byzantologist, George Ostrogorsky, who lived with us [in Serbia] and had a brilliant career, giving significant weight to Serbian Byzantology. He himself was Russian, but had many students, including Greeks. He wrote about this in roughly 1936, at roughly the same time as Hieromonk Basil (Krivoshein), even a bit earlier.

Hesychasm is a prayerful life, a life with love; at the same time, it is a mystagogical and liturgical life in which, following one’s purification from the passions, one attains a profound experience and taste: the vision of the glory and grace of God. It is not simply a means of preparation for prayer, as Barlaam had initially thought and even certain ignorant monks had explained, in which one must press one’s head to the chest, follow one’s breathing, and gaze at one’s navel. That is nonsense, and St. Palamas criticized it. Of course, it is essentially to become focused, but this is not meditation. It is not meditation, but a deepening in prayer, so that the mind would descend into the heart, which is the depth of man’s being. As the Savior said: For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts (Matthew 15:19)."

Read the rest of Bishop Atanasije's talk here and here.