The archbishop and monk who defended hesychast mysticism and the distinction between God's unknowable essence and his experienced "energies" — a pillar of Orthodox theology.
Life
Gregory Palamas (1296–1359), a monk of Mount Athos and later archbishop of Thessalonica, defended the hesychast monks' practice of contemplative prayer and their claim to experience the uncreated light of God. Against the philosopher Barlaam he articulated the distinction between the divine essence (utterly transcendent) and the divine energies (in which humans truly partake) — a doctrine affirmed by Orthodox councils and central to Eastern Christian theology and spirituality ever since.