From: Fr. Panagiotes Carras
Sent: 03/17/14 02:34 AM
To: Orthodox Info Egroup
A Sermon for the Sunday of St Gregory Palamas 2014
By Metropolitan Moses
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
On this, the second Sunday of Great Lent we celebrate the memory of Saint Gregory Palamas, and the gospel reading for today is about a paralytic and the workings of the grace of God. This paralytic was carried by four of his friends to our Lord Jesus Christ and they could not draw near because of the crowd and they went up on the roof and uncovered the roof tiles and let the paralytic down. And, “When Jesus saw their faith, He said unto the paralytic, Son, thy sins are forgiven thee” (Mark 2:5).
The Pharisees and Sadducees were ignorant regarding Who our Savior was and within themselves they asked, “Who is this man that claims that He can forgive sins? Only God can forgive sins.” And to demonstrate His power our Savior said to them, “Which is easier, to heal the paralytic or to forgive sins, but to let you know that the Son of Man is the healer of both soul and body, Rise up and walk.” And the man was immediately healed. (see Mark 2:1-12)
The paralytic approached in faith and was, first, purified and cleansed of his sin and then, healed of his paralysis through the power and grace of God. One interpretation of today’s gospel reading is that we must first seek, with faith and humility, the grace of God to be healed of our sins and then we can be freed of our spiritual paralysis and find salvation.
Saint Gregory Palamas, who we commemorate today, expounded the workings of Grace more than any other Church Father.
Who was Saint Gregory? He was born in Constantinople in 1296 of pious parents. After being orphaned of his father at a young age the Emporer Andronicus II Paleologos took special interest in the upbringing and education of the boy. Many marveled at his intelligence and demeanor and a brilliant career awaited him. Yet, after consulting with monastics who visited the capital, Saint Gregory withdrew from court and struggled in asceticism for two years in Constantinople as a test to see if he could become a monk. In the meantime His mother and siblings all became monastics from his example. At the age of 20, he then went to Mount Athos. Saint Gregory made great progress in the spiritual life and, at the age of 30, he had the gift of prophesy and worked miracles.
Later, during the lifetime of Saint Gregory one Barlaam of Calabria arrived in the parts of the east and spread his false teaching that God Himself does not unite with man or enter into man’s heart, but that God creates a grace that He imparts to man. This teaching developed in the west because they were immersed more in the teachings of the Greek philosophers than the Gospel. They tried to force Christian revelation into philosophical constructs (which is the source of all heresy.)
Philosophical speculation is merely sophisticated guess-work. Saint John Chrysostom once compared to men who philosophize in such a manner as men who dwell in the forum and guess about the life of the king while they have no knowledge of court life.
The God-bearing Fathers of the Church did not seek knowledge through philosophical speculation, but rather, they strove to maintain Apostolic Tradition and at the same time they purified themselves through spiritual endeavor and sought to know the things of God by experience. These same Holy Fathers explain to us that God is completely distinct from His creation. We partake of life, He is the source of life. God brought all things into being from nothing. God is beyond being. God is completely transcendent in His essence, He dwells in unapproachable light, He is without beginning, invisible, incomprehensible, indescribable and changeless.
One can ask, if God is completely transcendent in His essence, then how do we commune with Him?
The Holy Fathers teach that God is simple and uncreated and we commune with Him by partaking of His uncreated energies or grace.
When we hear the words, the grace of God, the glory of God, divine light, all of these terms refer to the uncreated energies of God.
The Holy Father’s explanation of the distinction between the essence and energies of God makes clear for us the way in which the transcendence and immanence of God, as well as some seemingly contradictory scriptural statements, are kept in balance.
The God bearing Fathers explained for us that only non-being is without operation or energy. If one were to say that the operation or energy of the Holy Trinity was created then the logical conclusion is that the Holy Trinity is created (which is blasphemy). Uncreated nature has an uncreated energy.
Essence is cause and energy is effect. This revealed Spiritual Truth, affects our world-view and gives us a precise perspective on spiritual reality.
These teachings shed light on Saint Peter’s words in his Second Epistle:
“Grace and peace be multiplied unto you through the knowledge of God, and of Jesus our Lord, According as his divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of him that hath called us to glory and virtue: Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises: that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.” (2Peter 1:1-4)
Thus, in this context Saint Peter is saying that potentially we can become partakers of the Divine uncreated energies of our Transcendent God, if we escape the lusts of the world.
Saint Gregory also pointed out that when our Savior said unto His disciples,
“For whosoever shall be ashamed of me and of my words, of him shall the Son of man be ashamed, when He shall come in His own glory, and in His Father's, and of the holy angels.” (Luke 9: 26) –He referred to His own glory as something shared not only with His Father, but also with the holy angels and ultimately, with men.At this point, I am constrained to bring up something regarding a present day heresy that has confused some, that is the heresy of name-worshipping. The name worshippers of our day claim that the name of God is an energy of God.
Saint Gregory Palamas rejected this idea in a written refutation of the so-called philosopher Gregoras (one of the supporters of Barlaam and Akyndinos) with the words,
“Gregoras formulated the insane doctrine that the names are the divine energies.”
(Saint Gregory Palamas, Discourses II, 28:5-6, in Collected Works [Συγγραμματα], volume 4, page 286, ed. by P. Chrestou, Thessaloniki, 1988.)Bishop Sergios of Portland distributed a concise and thought provoking article featuring this quote. (see below) I only wish to add something that others have rightly observed before me, that the doctrine of uncreated names is of Platonic, Gnostic, Talmudic and Cabalistic origins. This false teaching has never been accepted or taught by the Church of God.
The heresy of name-worshipping is not a trivial topic. Name-worshipping was condemned as a heresy by the Patriarchate of Constantinople (1912 & 1913), the Russian Church (1913) and the Patriarch of Antioch (1913). Beloved Christians, with love, meekness and fear, we must explain to those who have been led astray by false bishops and elders that the heresy of name-worshipping is just as pernicious as the false teachings that Saint Gregory had to fight against in his day.
Saint John of Kronstadt has been misquoted by some to support the error of name-worshipping, yet in his spiritual diary ‘My Life In Christ’ (pp. 467-468) he wrote:
“Since the Lord is everywhere present, His Cross works miracles, His name works miracles, His Icons are wonderworking”. “Since we are of flesh, the Lord attaches His presence, so to speak, and His very self with creation… He attaches Himself to the Temple, to the Icons, to the sign of the Cross, to His name composed of articulated sounds, with holy water, with the sanctified bread, wheat and wine… but there shall come a time when all the visible signs shall not be necessary, and we shall partake of Him more intensely then, ‘in the unwaning day of His Kingdom’, where as now only through the medium of the flesh and through Icons and signs.”
One can say that the present time is an age of extreme error and confusion. Our Savior predicted that in the last times there would many false christs and personality cults who will lead many astray. I pray that you always honor the teachings of the saints of our Church and seek the grace of God by living a Christ centered life. In order to do this you all must be informed of our faith and apply yourselves to the spiritual life.
I wish to end with the entreaty,
O Holy Father Saint Gregory Palamas, intercede for us, the Christians of the last times, that our Savior, Christ Jesus, grant us all the wisdom to pursue a life of grace and that He will grant increase to our capacity to receive Divine illumination! Amen.