Deification (gr. theosis) was always supposed to be within the reach of a pure heart. The Latins suspected this doctrine to be misguided and dangerous, but the hesychasts of the fourteenth century were not breaking new ground. They were developing the practices and the theology of a long and unbroken Tradition of Orthodox monasticism. They were denounced by an Italian Greek called Barlaam of Calabria, a humanist scholar monk. Barlaam challenged their theology, which was seen by many as being of an outsider into the field of Orthodox truth.
Two months later another monk rose to challenge the hesychast theology, Gregory Akindynos. In a council held this time chaired by Cantacuzene following the repose of the patriarch Andronicos III, Akindynos was condemned and Palamas again vindicated. The debate had a political turnout of rivalry between the John Cantacuzene and the Patriarch John. The Patriarch made out of Palamas a protege of Cantacuzene, assisted by Gregory Akindynos. Gregory Palamas was arrested in Constantinople and then excommunicated. Here Cantacuzene derived for him invaluable benefit having behind him the religious authority of the monks of Mount Athos. His political victory in 22 of May 1347 inevitably entailed the spiritual victory of Hesychasm. The Patriarch was deposed and denounced and his place was taken by a hesychast monk. Saint Gregory Palamas was appointed to the see of Thesalonica.
He wrote the Triads in which he treats of the difference between the energy and essence of God. The Bogomils, a Messalian heresy, maintained that they can see through prayer the very essence of God. In response to this affirmation, Saint Gregory Palamas develops the doctrine of the uncreated divine energies.
The religious and theological debate in Byzantium had much more than purely theoretical significance. They contributed to the survival of Byzantium as a State, shaping the various aspects of what Nicolae Iorga called Byzance apres Byzance, in the whole of Eastern Europe. Thus the new "opening to the West," so characteristic to intellectual life of Byzantium, leads to a polarization of minds between those who were ready to negotiate ecclesiastical union, but only through serious theological debate with those for whom theological issues ranked very low in the order of priorities, but who were discovering for themselves and for Hellenic civilization a new and brilliant future in the framework of the Western Renaissance.
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