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ST GREGORY PALAMAS, BISHOP - 14 NOVEMBER

 

ALL SAINTS CELEBRATED IN NOVEMBER

Saints celebrated on the 14th of November 

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SAINT GREGORY PALAMAS, BISHOP

Gregory, an Eastern Orthodox cleric, was born in Constantinople around 1296, the son of Constantine, a courtier of the Byzantine Emperor Andronikos II Palaiologos. Because his father died when Gregory was still young, the Emperor himself took part in the raising and education of the boy and hoped that Gregory would devote himself to government service, but Gregory, at barely 21 years of age, entered a monastery on Mount Athos (in modern Greece) and followed the rule of Saint Basil. He lived on Athos in solitude for most of the following twenty years. 

In 1326, because of the threat of Turkish invasions, he and the brethren retreated to the defended city of Thessaloniki, where he was then ordained a priest. Dividing his time between his ministry to the people and his pursuit of spiritual perfection, he founded a small community of hermits near Thessaloniki in a place called Veria.

He served for a short time as Abbot of the Esphigmenou Monastery but was forced to resign in 1335 due to discontentment regarding the austerity of his monastic administration.

During the 1330's, he began to defend the practice of hesychasm against the attacks of people like Barlaam of Calabria, who denied, among other things, that the light of Tabor which hesychasts experience is the uncreated light. Although the 1341 council of Constantinople upheld some of Gregory's teachings, he was excommunicated in 1344. Three years later, he was consecrated bishop of Thessaloniki.

Gregory believed that although God is ultimately unknowable, man can experience his energies through the sacraments and mystical experience, which are possible because of the Incarnation of Christ. The practice of the Jesus Prayer opens one to God's energies.

Gregory died on November 14, 1359. His dying words were, "To the heights! To the heights!"

Gregory has been venerated as a saint in the Eastern Orthodox Church since 1368. Within the Post Vatican II Catholic Church, he has also been called a saint; Pope John Paul II repeatedly called Gregory a great theological writer. Since 1971, the Melkite Greek Catholic Church has venerated Gregory as a saint.

Sources: - https://www.catholic.org/saints/saint.php?saint_id=1001 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gregory_Palamas - https://www.lincolndiocese.org/news/diocesan-news/19013-ask-the-register-can-catholics-venerate-orthodox-saints


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