Gregory Palamas

Gregory Palamas, a monk of Mount Athos and
metropolitan of Thessalonike from 1347 to 1357, was a leading
fourteenth-century Byzantine intellectual. He was the chief spokesman for the
hesychasts in the controversy bearing that name, which began when a charge of
heresy was laid against him in 1340 and ended with his proclamation as a saint
in 1368. Although excellent English translations of some of Palamas’
theological writings are available, very few texts relating to his historical
role have yet been translated. This book contains the first English translation
of the contemporary Life of Palamas
by Philotheos Kokkinos, which is our principal source of biographical
information on him. Also translated into English for the first time are the
Synodal Tomoi from 1341 to 1368,
which chart the progress of the hesychast controversy from the viewpoint of the
victors, together with the corpus of material relating to Palamas’ year of
captivity among the Turks, which offers a unique insight into conditions for
Christians and Muslims in the early Ottoman emirate. The translations, all of
which are based on critical texts, are preceded by introductions which set
Palamas in his historical context and propose some changes to the conventional
chronology of his life.