Ἐξώφυλλο: Ἡ Μονὴ τοῦ Ἁγίου Σάββα.

Μικρογραφία ἀπὸ τὸν κώδικα 129, f. 28r,

τῆς Μονῆς Δοχειαρίου. Βλ. Οἱ θησαυροὶ
τοῦ Ἁγίου Ὄρους. Σειρὰ Α΄. Εἰκονογραφη
μένα χειρόγραφα, τόμ. Γ΄, ἐκδ. Ἐκδοτικὴ
Ἀθηνῶν, Ἀθήνα 1979, σ. 174.
 Beyond stillness:
hesychasm and the divine energies
between praxis and theoria
in St Gregory Palamas

1 Tikhon Alexander Pino*

Abstract

H esychasm and hesychia have become eminently recognizable

terms. They have come to be synonymous with a spiritual
system and a set of practices that ourished in Late Byzantium,
especially in the cells of Mt Athos and the monasteries of Thes-
salonica and Constantinople. Yet the scope and meaning of these
concepts, particularly in the theology of St Gregory Palamas, with
whom they are most closely associated, are not always carefully
de ned. Much attention has been given to the hesychastic method
more generally, and to the doctrines of dei cation and contempla-
tion in Palamas. Yet the precise nature of hesychastic «stillness» in
Palamas’s spiritual theology, especially as it relates to the traditional
dichotomy between praxis and theoria, allows for further exploration.
This paper examines St Gregory’s understanding of hesychia as a
bridge between action and contemplation, looking especially at his

*
The Pappas Patristic Institute, Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of
Theology, Brookline, Massachusetts, USA.

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Tikhon Alexander Pino

description of the Mother of God as the paradigm of hesychasm in

Homily 53 and his conception of the soul’s Sabbath in Homily 17.
By setting Gregory’s exposition of hesychasm in these sources with-
in the context of his broader doctrine of the divine energies, this
paper aims to show that hesychia is both a radical «rest» from the
created activities of human nature and a transitus into the eternal
activity (energeia) of God, transcending stillness and bridging the
gap between action and contemplation.

Introduction
«Hesychasm», while still widely considered to be an esoteric
form of spirituality and religious practice, is no longer an esoteric
word. Particularly as a feature of the theology of St Gregory Palamas
and the theological controversies of fourteenth-century Byzantium,
the concepts of hesychasm and hesychia have entered well into the
mainstream of historical-theological consciousness. Yet hesychasm,
especially as it relates to the theology of St Gregory Palamas, is not
always well-de ned. Broadly speaking, hesychia is often associated,
for obvious reasons, with the internal and outward stillness of a life
devoted entirely to prayer. It is identi ed especially with inner qui-
etude and freedom from the passions (apatheia, ataraxia, and their
equivalents), with the neptic tradition of guarding the heart and
attending to oneself, and of course with the practice of unceasing
prayer that leads to intimate union with God (especially through the
use of the Jesus Prayer)1. Studies of hesychasm have often focused
particularly on the techniques and practices associated with Late
Byzantine spiritual manuals the spiritual system associated
with the hesychastic «method» and its theoretical underpinnings2.
But what, precisely, does hesychia, as such, mean in the writings of
St Gregory Palamas The present paper seeks to re-examine the

1. See I. Hausherr, L’hésychasme , OCP 22 (1956), 5-40 247-285.

2. See, for example, D. Krausmüller, The Rise of Hesychasm , in The
Cambridge History of Eastern Christianity, ed. Michael Angold (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2008), 101-126 Pierre Adn s, Hésychasme ,
DS 7 (1971), 381-399.

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 Hesychasm and the divine energies between praxis and theoria in St Gregory Palamas

notion of hesychasm commonly attributed to Palamas by exploring

the nature of the «stillness» that the hesychast is said to achieve
by his prayer and by his separation from the world. It will argue
that rather than seeing hesychasm as a means to an end (a spiritual
practice oriented towards achieving certain spiritual experiences),
Palamas treats hesychia itself as a liminal state, standing partway
between ascetical striving (πράξις) and contemplation (θεωρία) and
having a part in both. While containing in itself the fullness of the
virtues, hesychia is nevertheless the very transcendence of human
labor, forming the ground of what Palamas calls spiritual sen-
sation , in which earthly and created faculties yield to uncreated,
supernatural power. The liminal character of hesychastic stillness,
as simultaneously praxis and theoria, allows Palamas to elaborate a
theory of hesychia that is at once an end and a beginning, the telos
of temporal human striving, on the one hand, and the beginning of
radical participation in God, on the other. It is both repose and ac-
tivity, since hesychia, according to Palamas, is the Sabbath of the soul,
in which the human being not only ceases from all creaturely work
but enters into the uncreated activity of God that has no beginning.
Palamas’s description of the soul’s Sabbath as a movement from
human to divine energeia allows Palamas to elaborate, implicitly,
the sense in which the divine energies can be spoken of as «activi-
ties , since they are the works that God performs unceasingly from
all eternity. By entering into these works, and leaving behind the
created activity of the world, the hesychast experiences a stillness
and contemplation that is, at the same time, a dynamic and living
operation, being the ever-moving rest of God himself.

Hesychasm, St Gregory Palamas famously explains, was invent-

ed by none other than the Mother of God when she was a young
girl living in the Holy of Holies. Dwelling as in Paradise , in the
innermost chamber of that image of the heavenly court, the Virgin,
Palamas tells us, would frequently hear the sacred histories of the
human race, as recounted in the Scriptures, and was moved with

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pity and compassion for fallen humanity3. Striving to e ectively

reconcile man with God, that he might save his creature and once
again unite him to himself, the Theotokos, we are told, undertook
a thorough study of the virtues, both those mentioned in the Law
and those discovered by reason and by men who observed both
the Law and reason 4. Her purpose, according to Palamas, was
to discover the science and philosophical way of life most directly
concerned with conforming men to God himself and most advanta-
geous for this purpose.
But when she saw that none of the things discovered by men thus far
had this as its precise aim, she invented (καινοτομεῖ) those things that
are greater and more perfect. She uncovered, practiced, and transmitted
to those who came after her a praxis more exalted than theoria, and a
theoria that di ered as much from that which was formerly so-called as
truth di ers from fantasy5.
This novel and lofty pursuit invented by the Mother of God is
identi ed by Palamas as nothing other than hesychia, sacred still-
ness , through which human beings can taste of the good things to
come, stand side by side with the angels, and en oy a celestial way
of life.6
Though the solitude of the Mother of God in the Temple is an
important part of her hesychia, it is instructive to note that it was
not her outward tranquility or separation from the ordinary course
of human life that made her a hesychast. Palamas, like the patristic
tradition before him, will certainly connect the hesychastic way of
life with desert-dwelling, solitude, and a life apart. Thus, the shep-
herds in Bethlehem were, as Dionysios put it, «puri ed by their

3. Homily 53.47, 48 (ΠΣ 6:575.708, 575.716 – 576.737). For a complete

English translation of all Gregory’s Homilies, see Christopher Veniamin, Saint
Gregory Palamas: The Homilies (Dalton, PA: Mouth Thabor Publishing, 2016
2nd reprint edition).
4. Hom. 53.49 (ΠΣ 6:576.742-744).
5. Hom. 53.49 (ΠΣ 6:576.747 – 577.751).
6. Hom. 53.50 (ΠΣ 6:577.752-756). Cf. Hom. 53.52 (ΠΣ 6:577.787).

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 Hesychasm and the divine energies between praxis and theoria in St Gregory Palamas

anchoretic way of life and hesychia»7. Νikephoros the Solitary, too, is

said by Palamas to have lived «in tranquility (ἡρεμί ) and hesychia»
on the Holy Mountain8. In the case of the Virgin, that living icon
of every virtue»9, Palamas emphasizes that she lived secluded in the
Holy of Holies from the age of three10. Indeed, her decision to live
in the Temple constituted, of itself, the selection of what is higher
and a preference for the Creator of nature over nature itself11. Yet, as
Palamas describes the life of the Mother of God, this solitude and
renunciation of the world was not yet hesychia in the strict sense12. It
was not until the Virgin embarked upon a further stage, in the tran-
scendence, beyond all intellection and description, of every species
of human virtue , that she became a hesychast par excellence13.
The novelty of the Virgin’s pursuit, Palamas explains, consisted
in seeking after true union with God (θεῷ δὲ συγγενέσθαι κατ’
ἀλήθειαν), above and beyond all human virtue and contemplation,
indeed beyond all human capacity14. To achieve this unprecedented
state, according to Palamas, requires not only the puri cation of
one’s soul but going outside of oneself, or rather above oneself ,

7. Triads 2.3.28 (ed. Meyendor , 443.9). Cf. Dionysios, On the Celestial

Hierarchy 4.4 (181B) (ed. G. Heil and A.M. Ritter, Corpus Dionysiacum II:
Pseudo-Dionysius Areopagita. De coelesti hierarchia, De Ecclesiastica hierarchia,
De mystica theologia, Epistulae (PTS 67) (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2012), 23, line 5.
8. Triads 1.2.12 (ed. Meyendor , 99.6).
9. Hom. 53.6 (ΠΣ 6:554.80).
10. Hom. 53.8-9 (ΠΣ 6:556.129-135). Cf. Hom. 53.19 (ΠΣ 6:560.270-
273), 53.21 (ΠΣ 6:561.306 – 562.319).
11. Hom. 53.26 (ΠΣ 6:564.375-376).
12. By extension, the hesychastic experiences of the prophets, such as
Moses in the wilderness, was not yet the fulness of hesychia, even when these
experiences involved visions of the uncreated glory of God, since this was tru-
ly initiated only by the Mother of God. See below, n. 41. Cf. Hom. 53.27 (ΠΣ
6:564.389 – 565.405).
13. Hom. 53.11 (ΠΣ 6:557.165-168). The Mother of God, Palamas tells
us, exhibited in her life every manner of personal, domestic, and even political
excellence (Hom. 53.50 ΠΣ 6:577.752-760). Yet, it was precisely in surpassing
these that she blazed the path of hesychia.
14. Hom. 53.51 (ΠΣ 6:577.778).

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Tikhon Alexander Pino

forsaking everything sensible, together with sensation itself, and being

lifted up beyond thoughts, reasonings, and every science together with
its rational discourse, becoming wholly lled with the activity (en-
ergeia) of spiritual sensation (α σθησις νοερά) (which Solomon called
«divine sensation») and entering into the unknowing that is beyond
knowledge15.
To achieve true union with God, in other words, requires one to
leave behind not only the things of the body, but also the things of
the mind, and that in a radical way16. This is not simply the quiet-
ing of thoughts or the achievement of a kind of tranquility of soul.
It is, as Gibbon described it, the total abstraction of the faculties of
the mind and body»17. Palamas de nes it still more fully. Hesychia,
he says, is
the stasis of the intellect and of the world, the forgetting of the things
below, the initiation into the things above, and the putting o of intel-
lections (νοημάτων) for what is better. It is true praxis, the approach
to true contemplation (or the vision of God [theoptia], to put it more
literally), which is the only sign of a truly healthy soul18.
Explained in this way, hesychia is obviously more than a kind of
inner peace or serenity. It is more than the defeat of sinful move-
ments and the putting o impassioned thoughts. It is, instead, still-
ness in the most literal and absolute sense of the word, wherein the

15. Hom. 53.51 (ΠΣ 6:578.779-783). Cf. Prov. 1:7, 2:3. This phrase, which
is not found in extant versions of the Septuagint, is generally associated with
Origen. See, e.g., Contra Celsum 1.48.30 (ed. M. Borret, Origène: Contre Celse
[SC 132] [Paris: Éditions du Cerf, 1967], 204). See M. J. McInroy, Origen
of Alexandria , in The Spiritual Senses: Perceiving God in Western Christianity,
ed. P. L. Gavrilyuk and S. Coakley (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
2012), 22 n. 13.
16. On ecstasy and the cessation of intellectual activity and the vision
of God in Palamas, see A. Chouliaras, The Anthropology of St Gregory Palamas:
The Image of God, the Spiritual Senses, and the Human Body (Turnhout: Brepols,
2020), 175-179.
17. E. Gibbon, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,
Volume the Fifth and Volume the Sixth (1788), ed. David Womersley (London:
Penguin, 1994), 783.
18. Hom. 53.52 (ΠΣ 6:578.788-791).

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 Hesychasm and the divine energies between praxis and theoria in St Gregory Palamas

human soul is left with precisely nothing that would characterize its
normal operation and activity. Yet alongside this purely apophatic
or negative de nition of hesychia, Palamas places the concomitant
positive reality that complements transcendence of the self. For the
laying aside of rational and intellective activity is simultaneously
said to be the introduction or admission of an outside energeia or
operation19. This is the unlimited operation of God in place of the
limited activity of the human mind. As Palamas explains in the
Triads, when this occurs, it is no longer the human intellect proper
that sees, but the Spirit itself:
This is why the Fathers who came after the great Dionysios have
termed this spiritual sensation , something which is itself conformed
to and somehow more expressive of that mystical and ine able con-
templation. For at that moment it is truly by the Spirit, and not by the
intellect or by the body, that man sees. And he knows for a fact that he
has seen a light which supernaturally transcends light. But with what
he sees, he does not at that moment know. Nor can he scrutinize its na-
ture, on account of the inscrutability of the Spirit by which he sees ....
For he sees not by sensing, even though he sees as clearly as sensation
senses sensible things and even more clearly than this. Rather, he sees
himself in ecstasy by means of the ine able inner sweetness of what he
sees, and is caught up, not only away from every ob ect and thought of
ob ects, but even away from himself20.

19. In the Ten Steps of hesychia, the so-called Ladder of the Graces of
Stillness, written by the monk Theophanes, tranquility of all manner of
thoughts» is exactly the half-way point between «pure prayer» and «imper-
fect perfection . Between these comes not only contemplation (theoria) of the
mysteries on high , but an outside energeia , or, as it were, a foreign power.
See Ladder of the Graces of Stillness, lines 7-14 (ed. A. Rigo, I Versi sulla he-
sychia , REB 70 [2012], 45). We had the privilege of seeing a manuscript of
this text produced by the hand of St Mark Eugenikos (Mosq. gr. 245) at the
State Historical Museum in Moscow in 2017.
20. Triads 1.3.21 (ed. Meyendor , 155.2-10). Palamas is clear that this
is intentionally called «sensation» (and not merely «perception») in order
to evoke the paradox (through the use of an oxymoron) of a contemplation
that is neither bodily nor intellective, but beyond both. See Triads 1.3.20 (ed.
Meyendor , 153.4-11).

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Tikhon Alexander Pino

The negation of human faculties that this ‘spiritual sensation’

entails is characterized as a form of unknowing (even ignorance)21.
Yet it is also, by virtue of the divine perception to which it yields,
beyond knowing , that is, beyond all human knowledge and the
natural capacities of the soul and body. And thus, when the un-
created light that is beyond sensation and intellect has mingled it-
self ine ably with them, those who have puri ed the heart through
sacred hesychia contemplate God in themselves as in a mirror 22. The
resulting stillness, then, is not a void or absence in the human soul,
but a condition, not unlike transparency, that allows the uncreated
Spirit to penetrate what is by nature limited and created.
The correlativity of complete human quiescence and the activa-
tion of divine presence a kind of death that is in fact the very life
of the soul allows Palamas to speak of hesychia as a praxis more
exalted than contemplation and a theoria unlike any contemplation
known before23. It is both action and contemplation because it is
neither, insofar as it is a new form of both. As a human endeavor,
the achievement of hesychasm is in fact the end of ascetical labor
and striving, since it nds the limit of created power and puts aside
all natural e ort. As union with God, it does not cease to be active,

21. This has obvious connotations for the abandonment of secular learn-
ing, in particular. St Gregory’s impatience for the preoccupation with academ-
ic study (as a lower form of knowledge) is exceedingly well known. He notes
with regard to the Mother of God, in particular, that since she possessed so
many gifts, both supernatural and natural from her mother’s womb, she did
not seek to add to what she already possessed through learning. Literally,
she did not seek any other acquired nature (ἐπίκτητόν τιν' λλην φύσιν
ἑαυτῆ), for this is how I think we ought to call the dispositions born of stud-
ies» (Hom. 53.18 ΠΣ 6:560.259-262).
22. Hom. 53.53 (ΠΣ 6:578.801-803). The paradigm of this radical inter-
penetration of divinity in the human soul is, once again, the Mother of God,
whose purity and devotion to hesychia were such that Christ was hypostatically
incarnate within her see Hom. 52.53 (ΠΣ 6:578.803 – 579.808) and n. 41 below.
23. See above, n. 5. Cf. G. I. Mantzarides, Hesychasm and Theology ,
in Orthodox Mysticism and Asceticism in the Work of St Gregory Palamas, ed.
C. Athanasopoulos (Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing,
2020), 4 C. Athanasopoulos, Hesychia, Salvation, Ine ability and uietude:
St Gregory Palamas and L. Wittgenstein on the Escapist and Futile Miscon-
ceptions of Ontological Salvation , in Orthodox Mysticism and Asceticism, 76.

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 Hesychasm and the divine energies between praxis and theoria in St Gregory Palamas

but elevates the human being to a new plane of activity (the activity
of God himself) that is nevertheless a repose from all that is earthly
and nite.

Hesychia as the Soul’s Sabbath

The distinction between the terrestrial labor that human beings
leave behind and the «true action» of hesychia and contemplation is
rooted for Palamas in the distinction between the two kinds of ‘work’
that God himself is said to perform in Scripture. This distinction is
found for Palamas, basing himself on the exegesis of St Maximos the
Confessor, in Gen. 2:3, which states that on the seventh day God rest-
ed from all his works which he began to do ( ν ρξατο ποιῆσαι)24. These
works, which were brought forward in time (χρονικῶς ργμένα),
are creatures angels, human beings, and all lower forms of exist-
ence which exist by participation in God and have a beginning.
But according to the explanation of St Maximos, the divine attrib-
utes in which creatures themselves participate (τὰ μεθεκτά) are also
«works»25. These are the works of God which God did not begin to
do ( ν οὐκ ρξατο) 26. These, by contrast, do not have a beginning
and were not brought forward in time (οὐκ ργμένα χρονικῶς) 27.
Palamas invokes this distinction in his debates with Barlaam and
Akindynos to prove that God does indeed have energeiai that are
uncreated and eternal. In his homily for the Sunday after Pascha
(Homily 17: On the Mystery of the Sabbath and the Lord’s Day), Pala-
mas invokes this distinction yet again to explain the nature of God’s

24. The original context of this discussion in St Maximos is likewise a

spiritual interpretation of the Sabbath rest see Theological Chapters 1.36-60
(PG 90:1097A-1105A).
25. Namely being, goodness, life, virtue, immortality, simplicity, immuta-
bility, and in nity.
26. These are the things contemplated essentially (οὐσιωδῶς) around
God . See St Maximos, Theological Chapters 1.48 (PG 90, 1100D) Tr. 3.2.7 (ed.
Meyendor , 655.27-28). Cf. T. Pino, Essence and Energies: Being and Naming
God in St Gregory Palamas (London: Routledge, 2022), 69, 93-94.
27. On the Divine Energies 41 (ΠΣ 2:126.9 – 127.14), citing Maximos,
Theological Chapters 1.48-50 (PG 90:1100C-1101B). Cf. Triads 3.2.11 (ed. Mey-
endor , 663.8-19). See Pino, Essence and Energies, 69.

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«rest» on the seventh day (Gen. 2:2-3), since in addition to the work
of creation, there are works of God which he neither began to do
nor ceased from doing, as the Lord himself revealed to us, saying,
My Father works till now, and I also work (Jn. 5:17) 28.
The distinction between the work which God does from all eter-
nity and the work from which God rested on the seventh day forms
the basis, for Palamas, for the stillness and rest into which the he-
sychast himself is also called to enter. As he explains in Homily 17:
But what is this rest (katapausis), you may long to learn more clearly,
and how do we too enter into it If we learn which works God did not
begin to do, because they are beginningless, then we shall all the more
clearly comprehend this rest , also, and how to enter into it. And in-
deed, what are these works Let the starting point of the Psalmist and
Prophet be our starting point as well, who writes about God, The works
of his hands are truth and judgement (Ps. 110:7). The knowledge of be-
ings and the foreknowledge of things to come are a beginningless work
of God. If someone should call these truth,’ he would not be wrong
about what the word signi es. Judgement and providence is likewise
an unceasing and beginningless work of God, for beings were in need
of udgement and providence even before they came to be, since they
had need of coming to be, and after coming to be lest they cease to exist
before their time. The return to himself (ἡ πρὸς ἑαυτὸν ἐπιστροφή)
is similarly a beginningless work of God, for he is moved (ἐκινεῖτο)
without beginning in the contemplation (theoria) of himself. One could
nd many things, therefore, if one inquires with understanding, that
are in the same category as these activities (energeiai). If each of us,
too, brethren, puts o our worldly and much-laboring cares, and their
attendant works , hanging with attentive ears upon the instruction of
the Spirit, he will be praised above all by the Lord. For the Lord did
not give his approval to Martha, because she was anxious about many
things, in spite of the fact that her zeal was directed towards him. Yet
Mary, who sat at his feet listening to his words of instruction, chose the
good portion, which will not be taken away from her. Do you see what the
work that does not rest is Whoever takes up these words of instruc-

28. Hom. 17.7 (ΠΣ 6:208.104-106).

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tion of the Spirit in his intellect, meditating on them and preferring

them in his soul’s reasoning to every other impassioned and terrestrial
thought (thereby ordering his own life, as by providence, unto salva-
tion), then that person too will have truth and udgement as his work,
speaking truth in his own heart, as the Psalmist and Prophet says (see
Ps. 14:2)29.
For Palamas, then, to enter into the rest of God is once again to
leave o earthly preoccupations, including the creaturely intellection
of the human mind, and to become wholly receptive, instead, to the
activities (energeiai) of God:
If you raise your intellect above every rational thought (syllogismos) –
even if it is good– and return the intellect wholly towards itself, through
abiding attention (δι’ ἐπιμόνου προσοχῆς) and unceasing prayer, you
too will truly enter into the divine rest and obtain the blessing of the
seventh day. You will see yourself, and through yourself you will be
carried up to the vision of God. For, as it is said, the end of prayer is
to be caught up towards the Lord. This is one of the reasons for the
blessing of the seventh day, which Moses indicated through the Law
by commanding that the seventh day be a day of rest –but only of rest
from works which bene t the body, for it is a day of activity in the
works proper to the soul30.
Palamas is very explicit, then, that the resulting rest (katapausis)
and stillness into which the hesychast enters are not a purely pas-
sive or negative preparatory condition, but the movement from one
kind of work to another. In discussing the eternal, uncreated activity
into which the hesychast enters, Palamas enumerates speci cally the
energeiai of divine knowledge, foreknowledge, ustice, providence,
and God’s return to himself , though he also indicates that there
are more. Each of these energies is the work that God performs
from all eternity. As Palamas says in his Antirrhetics against Akindy-
nos, For God, who is always active, has an unceasing ( παυστον)
energy, ever seeing all things and providing for all things. For my

29. Hom. 17.8-10 (ΠΣ 6:208.127 – 209.155).

30. Hom. 17.8 (ΠΣ 6:209.155 – 201.163).

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Father till now is working, and I also am working»31. The ‘activity’ of

the six-day creation, by contrast, is distinct from God’s eternal work
and is not numbered among God’s uncreated energies32. By blessing
the seventh day, therefore, on which he rested, God calls mankind
to similarly leave behind the work of this world and to enter with
him into the repose of what is everlasting:
Having condescended in the manner of one who loves mankind, to the
extent that he himself willed and found it necessary, making this sensible
world of ours in six days, he ascended again to his own height (which
he had never left) on the seventh day, in a manner be tting God, and
showed that his rest (katapausis) on that day was yet more blessed (Gen.
2:3), teaching us, also, to seek to enter, according as we are able, into that
rest, which is the intellective contemplation (theoria) of our very selves
and the ascent (ἀνάνευσις) to God thereby33.
Palamas is explicit here that the contemplation of God (which
is the activity of God) does not occur anywhere other than in the
intellect or soul itself, so that there can be no distinction between
the stillness and even emptiness of the re ecting surface and the
possibility of seeing God within it. The contemplation of God is thus

31. Against Akindynos 6.21.78 (ΠΣ 3:445.28-29).

32. Here Palamas will distinguish between the uncreated energeia that is
God’s creative power and the temporal manifestation of that power in the cre-
ation of the world: The essence of the Spirit is completely hidden, while the
energy of the divine Spirit, manifested (φανερουμένη) through its e ects, be-
gins and ceases at the level of manifestation (κατὰ τὴν φανέρωσιν), without the
creatures, as we have said, attaining to eternality. But the energy of God does
not, for this reason, begin and cease unquali edly (πάντως). For God, who is
always active, has an unceasing ( παυστον) energy, ever seeing all things and
providing for all things» (Against Akindynos 6.21.78 ΠΣ 3:445.19-29). See
Pino, Essence and Energies, 88-94.
33. Hom. 17.7 (ΠΣ 6:208.114-120). The idea that God came down to
create the world completes the Dionysian Neoplatonic imagery of procession,
abiding, and return that permeates Palamas’s discussion of both divine and
human activity and rest. In Hom. 53.32-33, Palamas makes a similar compar-
ison in the case of the Mother of God, who is said to make a circuit out of and
back into the world, like the sun, sanctifying even the most secret recesses of
the world by her movement through it.

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 Hesychasm and the divine energies between praxis and theoria in St Gregory Palamas

understood as the contemplation of the dei ed soul, which becomes

wholly permeated by the divine activity.
Yet the vision of God that Palamas calls spiritual sensation is
not merely «contemplative» in the ordinary sense of the word.
Palamas is explicit that this contemplation is a true participation in
the uncreated work of God, namely his knowledge, foreknowledge,
ustice, providence, and self-contemplation. Regarding the identity
of these energies or operations, it is important to point out that, in
his treatise on the interpretation of Dionysian Union and Distinction,
Palamas connects the energies of providence and contemplation,
speci cally, in a way that evokes the descent of God towards cre-
ation, though it occurs in the plane of eternity: For the divine
providence is nothing other than God’s turning (ἐπιστροφή) and
good will towards what is lower»34. Indeed, Palamas will identify
divine providence with the creative processions (δημιουργικαὶ
πρόοδοι) of God35, which are further identi ed with the divine in-
tellections (νοήσεις), foreordinations (προορισμοί), and goodnesses
(ἀγαθότητες)36. In the Triads, Palamas goes even further and ex-
plains that this is in fact nothing other than God’s di erentiated
self-contemplation (αὐτοπτικὴ θεωρία) in which God has no oth-
er ob ect than himself (ἡ ἑαυτοῦ θεωρία)37. Far from excluding
the natural contemplation of creatures, then, from theoria, Pala-
mas ultimately enfolds the divine contemplation of beings a work
which belongs properly to God within the contemplation of God
himself. This is not the philosophical, human contemplation of the
principles or logoi of nature,38 but the supernatural contemplation

34. On Union and Distinction 15 (ΠΣ 2:19-21).

35. Against Gregoras 2.13 (ΠΣ 4:273.16-17). Cf. Against Akindynos.
1.3.6 (ΠΣ 3:43.2), citing the Scholia on the Divine Names 2.5 (PG 4:221B):
δημιουργικαὶ πρόνοιαι τε καὶ ἀγαθότητες.
36. Against Gregoras 2.13 (ΠΣ 4:273.14-27). See, also, Against Akindynos
3.21.98 (ΠΣ 3:231.25-29), where providence is identi ed with the divine
udgements (κρίματα).
37. Triads 3.2.6 (ed. Meyendor , 653.17-24). On the relationship between
the divine «processions» and the language of energeia more generally (and
how this relates to the problem of analogia and the one and the many ), see
Pino, Essence and Energies, 70-72.
38. See Hom. 53.50. (ΠΣ 6:577.761-764).

615
Tikhon Alexander Pino

and spiritual sensation of the mind of God himself, which is both

one and many, since it is di erentiated according to his will, logoi,
knowledge, and eternal udgements for creatures.
To participate in these activities and operations of the divine life,
therefore, is not to gaze passively upon God and behold him as an
ob ect. It is, rather, to be uni ed with God himself by participating
in the movements that constitute his uncreated energies and opera-
tions39. To the extent that God is both ever-moving (ἀεικίνητος) and
motionless (ἀκίνητος)40, this species of hesychia is neither stillness in
the ordinary sense nor the kind of action that characterizes created
beings. It is, rather, the rest (katapausis) of God himself, signi ed by
the blessed Sabbath, in which temporal, earthly work yields to the
uncreated activity that has no beginning.

Conclusion
When the Mother of God sought to unite the highest part of her
soul with God, Palamas says:
She constructed a new and ine able pathway to the heavens, namely (if
I may so call it) intellective silence. Applying her intellect to this, she
ew up beyond all created things and saw the glory of God even more
fully than Moses, and looked upon divine grace, which is in no way
susceptible to the power of sensation but is a welcome and sacred vi-
sion for unde led souls and intellects. Partaking of this, she became, as
the divine hymnographers say, a cloud of light holding the truly living
water, the dawn of the mystic day, and the ery chariot of the Logos41.

39. On the divine energies and operations of God as the essential mo-
tion of his nature, see, e.g., On Union and Distinction 21 (ΠΣ 2:85.11-12)
Against Akindynos 5.12.43 (ΠΣ 3:320.16-17), citing St John of Damaskos, Exact
Exposition 59 (3.15) (ed. B. Kotter, Die Schriften des Johannes von Damaskos, vol.
2 [PTS 12] [Berlin: De Gruyter, 1973], 144.7-10). That Barlaam and Akindynos are
the Ones who Divide 18 (ΠΣ 2:277.9-10). Cf. On Union and Distinction 22 (ΠΣ
2:85.23-27) Letter to Athanasios 7 (ΠΣ 2:416.23-30) Against Akindynos 6.13.48
(ΠΣ 3:423.12-19). On the sense in which the divine energies are activities that
God performs, see, more generally, Pino, Essence and Energies, 96-98.
40. See Against Gregoras 2.43 (ΠΣ 4:297.11-12).
41. Hom. 53.59 (ΠΣ 6:582.908-914).

616
 Hesychasm and the divine energies between praxis and theoria in St Gregory Palamas

The hesychia which Palamas de nes as the stasis of the intellect

and the oblivion of things below is far from being a passive state42.
It is, rather, the transcendence of one’s natural limitations and the
incarnation of God’s eternal, in nite activity within the human be-
ing, even if this does not occur, for hesychasts other than the The-
otokos, at the level of hypostasis. Seen in this way, hesychia is not a
stage prior to contemplation, or merely the human preparation for
theoria, but the human side of contemplation itself, as the concave
aspect of a convex line. In this way human stillness, on the one
hand, and the appropriation of divine activity, on the other, form
a single spiritual state, in which the energeia of God takes prece-
dence over the lower operation of the human soul and its faculties.
Though this distinctly hesychastic stillness has been compared to
the annihilation’ of Su sm,43 it does not entail the destruction or
obliteration of what is human. Rather, it is the very communication
of divine idioms to the human soul, which remains wholly what
it was before, but nevertheless prefers the activity that is eternal
and uncreated to the lower functions of its own bodily senses and
intellect. As St Maximos the Confessor explained in describing the
negation of human attributes in Melchizedek:
To those in whom inclination, by means of the virtues, has prevailed
nobly against the unconquerable law of nature, and in whom the mo-
tion of the intellect, by means of knowledge, soars inviolate over the
property of time and the age to such as these, I say, it is not right
to characterize by the property of the things they have abandoned,
but rather to name them from the magni cence of what they have
assumed, for which and in which alone, henceforth, they exist and are
known. For we too, when naturally apprehending visible things, both
recognize and give names to them based on the color of their bodies, as
when we call air that has been su used with light by the name of light,

42. Cf. C. Athanasopoulos, Hesychia, Salvation, Ine ability and ui-

etude , 73.
43. See S. H. Nasr, The Prayer of the Heart in Hesychasm and Su sm ,
GOThR 31 (1986), 195-203 (199).

617
Tikhon Alexander Pino

or anything material that is burning by the name of re, or a brightly

whitened body by the name of white, and so on44.
In the same way, hesychia in the theology of St Gregory Palamas
constitutes the absolute dei cation of the human soul, which is
henceforward marked not by its own potencies and activities, but
by the eternal work of God, which transcends time, space, and all
that is human. Though this transcendence of the self is «true ac-
tion , it is also authentic stillness and rest, as the Sabbath in which
humanity ceases from all its labors. The hesychast, then, like the
Mother of God herself, does not simply move from action to con-
templation, but inhabits a middle state, in the energeia of spiritual
sensation, between sacred stillness and the truly divine activity of
the uncreated God.

44. Ambiguum 10.43 (trans. N. Constas, On Di cultues in the Church Fa-

thers I [Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2014], 217). In the com-
munication of divine idioms, the human soul desires to be wholly quali ed
by the whole circumscriber, and being wholly circumscribed will no longer
be able to wish to be known from its own qualities, but rather from those of
the circumscriber, in the same way that air is thoroughly permeated by light,
or iron in a forge is completely penetrated by the re, or anything else of this
sort» (Amb. 7.10 trans. Constas, 89).

618
 πέρ αση τ ς ρεμίας:
συχασμ ς κα ο θε ες ἐνέργειες
μετα πρ ης κα θεωρίας στ ν
γιο Γρηγόριο Παλαμᾶ
45
Tikhon Alexander Pino*

Περίλη η
Ὁ ἡσυχασμὸς καὶ ἡ ἡσυχία ἔχουν γίνει κατεξοχὴν ἀναγνωρίσι-
μοι ὅροι. Κατήντησαν συνώνυμοι μὲ να πνευματικὸ σύστημα
καὶ να σύνολο πρακτικῶν ποὺ κμασαν στὸ στερο Βυζάντιο,
ἰδιαίτερα στὰ κελιὰ τοῦ Ἁγίου Ὄρους καὶ στὰ μοναστήρια τῆς
Θεσσαλονίκης καὶ τῆς Κωνσταντινούπολης. στόσο, τὸ πλαίσιο
καὶ τὸ νόημα αὐτῶν τῶν ἐννοιῶν, ἰδιαίτερα στὴ θεολογία τοῦ γί-
ου Γρηγορίου Παλαμᾶ, μὲ τὸν ὁποῖο συνδέονται στενότερα, δὲν
προσδιορίζονται πάντα μὲ σαφήνεια. Μεγάλη προσοχὴ ἔχει δοθεῖ
στὴν ἡσυχαστικὴ μέθοδο γενικότερα, ἀλλὰ καὶ στὴ διδασκαλία τοῦ
Παλαμᾶ γιὰ τὴ θέωση καὶ τὴ θεωρία. στόσο, ἡ ἀκριβὴς φύση
τῆς ἡσυχαστικῆς ρεμίας στὴ διδασκαλία τοῦ Παλαμᾶ γιὰ τὴν
πνευματικὴ τελείωση, εἰδικὰ καθὼς σχετίζεται μὲ τὸν παραδοσι-
ακὸ διαχωρισμὸ μεταξὺ πράξης καὶ θεωρίας, ἐπιτρέπει περαιτέ-
ρω διερεύνηση. Τὸ παρὸν ρθρο ἐξετάζει τὴν ἀντίλη η τοῦ γίου
Γρηγορίου γιὰ τὴν ἡσυχία ὡς γέφυρας μεταξὺ δράσης καὶ θεωρί-
ας. Ἐπικεντρώνεται εἰδικότερα στὴν περιγραφή του γιὰ τὴ Μητέ-
ρα τοῦ Θεοῦ ὡς παράδειγμα ἡσυχασμοῦ στὴν Ὁμιλία 53, καθὼς
καὶ στὸ πὼς κατανοεῖ τὸν σαββατισμὸ τῆς υχῆς στὴν Ὁμιλία 17.
Τοποθέτοντας τὴν ἔκθεση τοῦ Γρηγορίου γιὰ τὸν ἡσυχασμὸ ἀπὸ
αὐτὲς τὶς πηγὲς στὸ πλαίσιο τῆς εὐρύτερης διδασκαλίας του γιὰ
τὶς θεῖες ἐνέργειες, τὸ ρθρο αὐτὸ στοχεύει νὰ δείξει ὅτι ἡ ἡσυχία

The Pappas Patristic Institute, Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of The-
ology, Brookline, Massachusetts, USA.

619
Tikhon Alexander Pino

ε ναι ταυτόχρονα μιὰ ριζικὴ ἀνάπαυση ἀπὸ τὶς κτιστὲς δρα-

στηριότητες τῆς ἀνθρώπινης φύσης καὶ να πέρασμα στὴν ἀ δια
δραστηριότητα (ἐνέργεια) τοῦ Θεοῦ, ὑπερβαίνοντας τὴν ρεμία
καὶ γεφυρώνοντας τὸ χάσμα μεταξὺ δράσης καὶ θεωρίας.

620
 ΘΕΟΛΟΓΙΚΕΣ ΠΑΡΕΜΒΑΣΕΙΣ
6

ΜΟΝΑΧΙΣΜΟΣ
Ἱστορικὲς καὶ θεολογικὲς προσεγγίσεις

Ἐπιμέλεια
Ἀνδρέας Π. Ζαχαρίου

Ἔκδοση Ἱερᾶς Μητροπόλεως Τριμυθοῦντος

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ΘΕΟΛΟΓΙΚΕΣ ΠΑΡΕΜΒΑΣΕΙΣ -6

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Ἐπίκουρος καθηγητὴς Θεολογικῆς Σχολῆς
Πανεπιστημίου Sulkhan-Saba Orbeliani, Τιφλίδα

Φιλολογικὴ ἐπιμέλεια:
Ματθαῖος Γ. Ματθαίου
Φιλόλογος
Παρασκευὴ Δ. Ζαχαριᾶ
Δρ Φιλοσοφίας
 Διάγραμμα τῆς Κλίμακος. Κώδικας 30, f. 260v, τῆς Μονῆς Σταυρονικήτα.
Βλ. Χρ. Μαυρόπουλου-Τσιούμη & Γ. Γαλαβάρη, Ἱερὰ Μονὴ Σταυρονικήτα. Εἰκονογρα-
φημένα χειρόγραφα ἀπὸ τὸν 10ο ἕως τὸν 17ο αἰ., τόμ. Β΄, Ἅγιον Ὄρος 2007, σ. 239.
 Ἐπιστημονικὴ Ἐπιτροπή:

Ἄννα Σ. Καραμανίδου
Καθηγήτρια Θεολογικῆς Σχολῆς ΑΠΘ
Πρωτ. Βασίλειος Ἀ. Γεωργόπουλος
Ἀναπληρωτὴς καθηγητὴς Θεολογικῆς Σχολῆς ΑΠΘ
Ἀνδρέας Π. Ζαχαρίου
Ἐπίκουρος καθηγητὴς Θεολογικῆς Σχολῆς
Πανεπιστημίου Sulkhan-Saba Orbeliani, Τιφλίδα

6
 ΠΕΡΙΕΧΟΜΕΝΑ

Πρόλογος .................................................................................... 11
Συντομογραφίες .........................................................................13

ΜΕΛΕΤΗΜΑΤΑ

Μητροπολίτου Τριμυθοῦντος Βαρνάβα (Σταυροβουνιώτου)

Οἱ προϋποθέσεις καὶ οἱ καρποὶ τῆς πνευματικῆς ζωῆς ......19

Μητροπολίτου Μεσσηνίας Χρυσόστομου Σαββάτου

Ὁ ρόλος καὶ ἡ παρουσία τοῦ μοναχισμοῦ στὸν σύγχρο-
νο κόσμο. Ἡ διαλεκτικὴ κόσμου καὶ ἄσκησης ...................31

Κωνσταντίνου Γ. Ἀθανασόπουλου
Οἰκολογία καὶ ἡσυχασμός: ὁ ἅγιος Γρηγόριος Παλαμᾶς
καὶ ἡ φύση ὡς κτίση ............................................................43

Eirini A. Artemi
The teaching of Isidore Pelousite and Cyril of Alexandria about
the restoration of relation of man with God ...............................61

Gocha Barnovi
Πορεία πρὸς τὴν τελείωση. Ἐπισημάνσεις μὲ βάση τὴν
ἀσκητικὴ παράδοση τῆς Ἐκκλησίας ...................................81

Φίλιππου Χρ. Γερμάνη

Ἡ κοινωνικὴ προσφορὰ τῶν μοναχῶν κατὰ τὸν ἅγιο
Γρηγόριο Θεολόγο ...............................................................93

Πρωτ. Βασίλειου Ἀ. Γεωργόπουλου

Ἡ ὀρθόδοξη ἀπάντηση στὶς λουθηρανικὲς ἐπικρίσεις
κατὰ τοῦ μοναχισμοῦ. Ἀναφορὰ στὴν ἀλληλογραφία
τῶν θεολόγων τῆς Τυβίγγης καὶ τοῦ Οἰκουμενικοῦ Πα-
τριάρχη Ἱερεμία Β΄ .............................................................111
7
 Περιεχόμενα

Σταύρου Γιαγκάζογλου
Οἱ δρόμοι τῆς φιλοκαλικῆς ἀναγέννησης κατὰ τὸν 18ο,
19ο καὶ 20ὸ αἰῶνα. Ἡ συμβολὴ τοῦ μοναχισμοῦ στὴν
ἀνανέωση τῆς σύγχρονης ὀρθόδοξης θεολογίας .............. 127

Γεώργιου Χ. Γκαβαρδίνα
Ἡ δικαστικὴ ἀπόφαση τοῦ ΕΔΔΑ 18312/12 ἀπὸ
08.10.2020: «Λιαμπέρης κ.ἄ. κατὰ Ἑλλάδος» καὶ οἱ
ἐπιπτώσεις της στὸ καθεστὼς τῆς κληρονομικῆς διαδο-
χῆς τῶν μοναχῶν ................................................................171

Παρασκευῆς Γκατζιούφα
Τὸ Ἐγκώμιον εἰς τὸν Ἅγιον Ἱερόθεον καὶ ἡ Βιβλιοθήκη
τῆς Abadía del Sacromonte .................................................... 191

Σωτήριου Δεσπότη
Μαρτυρία καὶ μαρτύριον: μιὰ ἀναψηλάφηση τῶν δύο
βασικῶν δεικτῶν τῆς ταυτότητας τῆς πρωτοχριστιανι-
κῆς κοινότητας τὸν 1ο καὶ 2ο αἰ. μ.Χ. ὑπὸ τὸ πρίσμα
τῆς Γνωσιακῆς Θρησκειολογίας .........................................225

Παρασκευῆς Δ. Ζαχαριᾶ
Ἡ θεολογία τοῦ ἁγίου Φραγκίσκου τῆς Ἀσίζης ὑπὸ τὸ
πρίσμα τῶν Ρώσων θεολόγων καὶ διανοητῶν τοῦ τέλους
τοῦ 19ου καὶ τῶν ἀρχῶν τοῦ 20οῦ αἰώνα ........................ 257

Ἀνδρέα Π. Ζαχαρίου
Τὸ ἀνέκδοτο Ὑπόμνημα τοῦ Νικολάου, μητροπολίτη
Κερκύρας, στὰ Κεφάλαια περὶ ἀγάπης τοῦ Μαξίμου
τοῦ Ὁμολογητοῦ. Εἰσαγωγικὲς παρατηρήσεις ................. 275

Ἄννας Σ. Καραμανίδου
Μοναχικὲς ἀρετὲς καὶ νουθεσίες στὸ ἔργο τοῦ ἁγίου
Μαξίμου τοῦ Γραικοῦ (1470-1556) ..................................299

Εἰρήνης Ἠλ. Κασάπη

Ὁ μοναχισμὸς κατὰ τὸν Ἰωσὴφ τοῦ Βολοκολὰμσκ στὸ
ἔργο του «Φωτιστής» ........................................................ 313
8
 Περιεχόμενα

Ἀθηνᾶς Ν. Κονταλῆ
Θεολογικὲς πτυχὲς τῆς ἀδικίας στὸν ἅγιο Κοσμᾶ τὸν
Αἰτωλό ................................................................................ 331

Κωνσταντίνου Κωτσιόπουλου
Τὸ πρόβλημα τῆς ἐκκοσμίκευσης ......................................345

Σουλτάνας Δ. Λάμπρου
«Κάτοπτρον ἡγεμόνος» στὸ Ἱερῶν καὶ Φιλοσοφικῶν
Λογίων Θησαύρισμα τοῦ ἁγίου Νεκταρίου Κεφαλᾶ,
μητροπολίτου Πενταπόλεως .............................................. 357

Guram Lursmanashvili
Some aspects of the opposition of monasticism before Reformation
according to Fr. Georges Florovsky ........................................ 373

Δημητρίου Ν. Μόσχου
Ἡ γένεση τοῦ κοινοβιακοῦ μοναχισμοῦ στὴν Αἴγυπτο.
Ἱστορικὴ ἔρευνα καὶ θεολογικὴ ἑρμηνεία .........................383

Ἰωάννη Θ. Μπάκα
Ἡ συμβολὴ τῶν μονῶν τῶν Ἀγράφων στὴν ἐπανάσταση
τοῦ 1854 μέσα ἀπὸ ἄγνωστη ἐπιστολὴ τοῦ Φαναριο-
φαρσάλων Νεοφύτου (1854-1867) ................................... 417

Ἰωάννη Μπέκου
Ὁ μοναχισμὸς ὡς παράδειγμα πνευματικῆς ζωῆς στὸν
κόσμο: ἡ ἀρετὴ καὶ ἡ κατανόηση ..................................... 431

Ἰωάννη Ἀντ. Παναγιωτόπουλου

Ἑλληνικὲς Μονὲς τῆς Πρεσβυτέρας Ρώμης ...................... 447

Πέτρου Ἀθ. Παναγιωτόπουλου

Μοναχισμός. Τὸ χαρισματικὸ πρότυπο τοῦ χριστιανι-
κοῦ βίου ............................................................................. 471

9
 Περιεχόμενα

Θεοχάρη Σ. Παπαβησσαρίωνος
«Χορὸς παναρμόνιος». Ἡ δοξολογικὴ πτυχὴ τῆς ἐκ τοῦ
μὴ ὄντος δημιουργίας στὸ Συμβουλευτικὸ Ἐγχειρίδιο
τοῦ ἁγίου Νικοδήμου τοῦ Ἁγιορείτη ................................. 541

Φαίδωνος Θ. Παπαδόπουλου
Ὁ ὀρθόδοξος μοναχισμὸς στὴν περιοχὴ τοῦ Ἀκάμα ........555

Ἑλεονώρας Παπαλεοντίου - Λουκᾶ

Μοναχισμός: μιὰ θεολογικὴ καὶ ψυχολογικὴ προσέγγιση .. 571

Tikhon Alexander Pino

Beyond stillness: hesychasm and the divine energies between
praxis and theoria in St Gregory Palamas ................................603

Γεώργιου Σταυρόπουλου - Γιουσπάσογλου

Ὁ ἅγιος Γρηγόριος ὁ Διάλογος καὶ τὸ ἀσκητικὸ βίωμα ..621

Γεώργιου Ν. Φίλια
Σημαντικοὶ σταθμοὶ στὴ σχέση Λατρείας καὶ Μοναχι-
σμοῦ ...................................................................................635

Ἀγγελικῆς Δ. Χατζηιωάννου
Ἡ μονὴ Στουδίου στὴν ἱστορία τοῦ ὀρθόδοξου μοναχι-
σμοῦ ...................................................................................... 667

10
 ΠΡΟΛΟΓΟΣ

Ὁ ἀνὰ χεῖρας Τόμος συνιστᾶ λιτὸ ἀφιέρωμα στὸ ἐν γέ-

νει φαινόμενο τοῦ μοναχισμοῦ, ποὺ ὡς σύντονος ἀγῶνας μὲ
στόχο τὴν ἐν Χριστῷ τελείωση (Μθ. 19, 21) ἔχει τὶς ἀπαρχές
του στὴν πρωτοχριστιανικὴ ἐποχή. Οἱ ἐλλογιμώτατοι συμμε-
τέχοντες μὲ τὶς ἔξοχες μελέτες τους –τριάντα μία τὸν ἀριθ-
μό– οἱ ὁποῖες περιλαμβάνονται σὲ αὐτόν, προσεγγίζουν μὲ
τρόπο σαφῆ καὶ σύστοιχο μὲ τὴ μακραίωνη παράδοση τῆς
Ἐκκλησίας τὶς πολυποίκιλες διαστάσεις ποὺ ἅπτονται αὐτοῦ
τοῦ φαινομένου. Ὁμιλοῦν γιὰ τὴν πνευματικότητα ποὺ ὁρί-
ζει τὸν μοναχισμό, ἐπισημαίνουν τὴν ἰδιαίτερη προσφορά του
σὲ ὅλα τὰ ἐπίπεδα, ἱστορικά, θεολογικά, ἑρμηνευτικά, καὶ ἐν
γένει ἀναλύουν ποικιλοτρόπως τὶς διάφορες πτυχὲς ποὺ τὸν
χαρακτηρίζουν ὡς ἰδιαίτερο τρόπο ζωῆς, ὁλοκληρωτικῆς ἀφι-
έρωσης στὸν Θεὸ καὶ ἀνιδιοτελοῦς προσφορᾶς.
Εὐχαριστοῦμε ὅλους ὅσοι συνέδραμαν καὶ συνέβαλαν στὴν
ὁλοκλήρωση τοῦ Τόμου αὐτοῦ. Κατ' ἀρχὰς τὴν ἐπιστημονικὴ
ἐπιτροπὴ γιὰ τὸν ὑποδειγματικὸ ζῆλο μὲ τὸν ὁποῖο ἐργάστη-
κε καὶ ἔπειτα τοὺς ἐπιμελητὲς τῶν κειμένων γιὰ τὴν ὑπομο-
νὴ ποὺ ἐπέδειξαν στὴν ἐπίπονη διαδικασία τῆς φιλολογικῆς
διόρθωσης. Ἰδιαίτερες εὐχαριστίες ὀφείλουμε καὶ στὴν Ἱερὰ
Μονὴ Ἁγίου Μηνᾶ, ἡ ὁποία προφρόνως ἀνέλαβε τὰ ἔξοδα
ἐκτύπωσης τοῦ Τόμου.

† Ὁ Τριμυθοῦντος Βαρνάβας

11
Ἱερὰ Μονὴ Ἁγίου Μηνᾶ, Βάβλα.
 ΣΥΝΤΟΜΟΓΡΑΦΙΕΣ

ΑΒ Ἀνάλεκτα Βλατάδων, Θεσσαλονίκη 1969-

AnBoll Analecta Bollandiana, Brussels 1882-
ΑΠ Ἄρειος Πάγος
ΑΠΘ Ἀριστοτέλειο Πανεπιστήμιο Θεσσαλονίκης
AUTh Aristotle University of Thessalonica
ΒΕΠΕΣ Βιβλιοθήκη Ἑλλήνων Πατέρων καὶ Ἐκκλησιαστικῶν
Συγγραφέων, Ἀθήνα 1955-
BHG F. Halkin (ed.), Bibliotheca Hagiographica Graeca,
Brussels 19573
BHR Bibliotheque d’Humanisme et Renaissance, Paris &
Geneva 1941-
ΒΚΜ Βυζαντινὰ Κείμενα καὶ Μελέται, Θεσσαλονίκη 1970-
BMGS Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies, Oxford 1975-
BV Bogoslovskiĭ Vestnik, Sergiev Posad 1892-1918
BZ Byzantinische Zeitschrift, Munich, Leipzig 1892-
CFHB Corpus Fontium Historiae Byzantinae, Berlin,
Washington DC, Paris, Vienna, Thessalonica 1967-
CPG Corpus Paroemiographorum Graecorum, ed. E. L.
Leutsch & F. W. Schneidewin, Gottingen 1839-1851
(repr. Hildesheim 1958-1965)
CSCO Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium, Louvain
1903-
CSEL Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum, Vienna
1866-
DOS Dumbarton Oaks Studies, Washington DC 1950-
DS Dictionnaire de Spiritualité, Ascétique et Mystique:
doctrine et histoire, tom. I-XVII, E. Viller et al. (dir.),
Paris 1931-1995
DTC Dictionnaire de Théologie Catholique contenant l’exposé
des doctrines de la théologie catholique, leurs preuves
et leur histoire, tom. I-XV, A. Vacant, E. Mangenot,
É. Amann (dir.), Paris 1909-1950
13
 Συντομογραφίες

ΕΑ Ἐκκλησιαστικὴ Ἀλήθεια, Κωνσταντινούπολη 1880-

1923
ΕΑΠ Ἑλληνικὸ Ἀνοικτὸ Πανεπιστήμιο
ECR Eastern Churches Review, Oxford 1966-1978
ΕΔΔΑ Εὐρωπαϊκὸ Δικαστήριο Δικαιωμάτων τοῦ Ἀνθρώπου
ΕΕΒΣ Ἐπετηρὶς Ἑταιρείας Βυζαντινῶν Σπουδῶν, Ἀθῆναι
1924-
ΕΕΘΣΠΑ Ἐπιστημονικὴ Ἐπετηρὶς Θεολογικῆς Σχολῆς Πανε-
πιστημίου Ἀθηνῶν, Ἀθῆναι 1924-
ΕΕΘΣΠΘ Ἐπιστημονικὴ Ἐπετηρὶς Θεολογικῆς Σχολῆς Πανε-
πιστημίου Θεσσαλονίκης, Θεσσαλονίκη 1953-
ΕΕΚΜ Ἐπετηρὶς Ἑταιρείας Κυκλαδικῶν Μελετῶν, Ἀθήνα
1961-
ΕΙΕ Ἐθνικὸ Ἵδρυμα Ἐρευνῶν
ΕΚΕΕ Ἐπετηρὶς Kέντρου Ἐπιστηµονικῶν Ἐρευνῶν, Λευ-
κωσία 1968-2019
ΕΚΜΙΜΚ Ἐπετηρίδα Κέντρου Μελετῶν Ἱερᾶς Μονῆς Κύκ-
κου, Λευκωσία 1990-
ΕΚΠΑ Ἐθνικὸν καὶ Καποδιστριακὸν Πανεπιστήμιον Ἀθη-
νῶν
ΕΠΕ Ἕλληνες Πατέρες τῆς Ἐκκλησίας, Θεσσαλονίκη
1972-
ΕΣΔΑ Εὐρωπαϊκὴ Σύμβαση Δικαιωμάτων τοῦ Ἀνθρώπου
ΕΦ Ἐκκλησιαστικὸς Φάρος, Ἀλεξάνδρεια 1908-
EvTh Evangelische Theologie, Munich 1934-
ΘΗΕ Θρησκευτικὴ καὶ Ἠθικὴ Ἐγκυκλοπαιδεία, τόμ. 1-12,
Ἀθῆναι 1962-1968
GCS Die Griechischen Christlichen Schriftsteller der ersten
drei Jahrhunderte, Berlin, Leipzig 1897-
GNO Gregorii Nysseni Opera, Berlin, Leiden 1921-
GOThR The Greek Orthodox Theological Review, Brookline MA
1954-
HThR Harvard Theological Review, New York, Cambridge
1908-
HUS Harvard Ukrainian Studies, Cambridge MA 1977-
ΙΒΕ Ἰνστιτοῦτο Βυζαντινῶν Ἐρευνῶν

14
Συντομογραφίες

JEH The Journal of Ecclesiastical History, London 1950-

JThS The Journal of Theological Studies, Oxford 1899-
ΚΒΕ Κέντρο Βυζαντινῶν Ἐρευνῶν
ΚΝΕ Κέντρο Νεοελληνικῶν Ἐρευνῶν
Κυχ Κυπριακὰ Χρονικά, Λάρνακα 1923-1937
LQF Liturgiewissenschaftliche Quellen und Forschungen,
Münster 1928-39, 1957-
ΜΙΕΤ Μορφωτικὸ Ἵδρυμα Ἐθνικῆς Τραπέζης
ΜΟΧΕ Μεγάλη Ὀρθόδοξη Χριστιανικὴ Ἐγκυκλοπαίδεια,
τόμ. 1-12, Ἀθήνα 2010-2015
NKUA National and Kapodistrian University of Athens
NPB Novae Patrum Bibliothecae, I-X, Rome 1852-1905
OChr Orientalia Christiana, Rome 1923-1934
OCA Orientalia Christiana Analecta, Rome 1935-
OCP Οrientalia Christiana Periodica, Rome 1935-
ODB The Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium, vol. I-III, A.
Kazhdan et al. (dir.), New York, Oxford 1991
OstkStud Ostkirchliche Studien, Warzburg 1952-
ΠΙΠΜ Πατριαρχικὸ Ἵδρυμα Πατερικῶν Μελετῶν
PG J.-P. Migne (ed.), Patrologiae cursus completus. Series
Graeca, Paris 1857-1866
PL J.-P. Migne (ed.), Patrologiae cursus completus. Series
Latina, Paris 1844-1864
PO R. Graffin et al. (eds.), Patrologia Orientalis, Paris 1907-
ΠΠΠ Πρῶτο Πρόσθετο Πρωτόκολλο
ΠΣ Γρηγορίου τοῦ Παλαμᾶ Συγγράμματα, Θεσσαλονί-
κη 1962-2015
PTS Patristische Texte und Studien, Berlin 1964-
RAC Reallexikon für Antike und Christentum, Stuttgart 1950-
Ράλλη - Ποτλῆ Σύνταγμα τῶν θείων καὶ ἱερῶν κανόνων τῶν τε
ἁγίων καὶ πανευφήμων Ἀποστόλων, καὶ τῶν ἱερῶν
Οἰκουμενικῶν καὶ Τοπικῶν Συνόδων, καὶ τῶν κατὰ
μέρος ἁγίων Πατέρων, τόμ. Α΄ - ΣΤ΄, ἔκδ. Γ. Ράλλη
– Μ. Ποτλῆ, Ἀθήνησιν 1852-1859 (φωτοτ. ἀνατ. ἐκδ.
Γρηγόρη, Ἀθήνα 1992
REB Revue des Études Byzantines, Bucarest & Paris 1946-

15
 Συντομογραφίες

RHE Revue d’histoire ecclésiastique, Louvain 1900-

RHR Revue de l’histoire des religions, Paris 1880-
RSR Recherches de Science Religieuse, Paris 1910-
RThom Revue Thomiste, Paris 1893-
SA Studia Anselmiana: philosophica, theologica, Rome 1933-
SC Sources Chrétiennes, Paris, Lyon 1941-
SH Subsidia Hagiographica, Bruxelles 1883-
SP Studia Patristica, Leuven, Berlin, Oxford [etc.] 1957-
SR Slavic Review, Seattle & Menasha 1941-
ST Studi e Testi, Rome 1900-
SVSQ St Vladimir’s Seminary Quarterly, New York 1953-1968
ThH Théologie Historique, Paris 1963-
VetChr Vetera Christianorum, Bari 1964-
VigChr Vigiliae Christianae, Amsterdam 1947-
ZKG Zeitschrift für Kirchengeschichte, Stuttgart 1877-
ZNW Zeitschrift für die Neutestamentliche Wissenschaft und die
Kunde der Älteren Kirche, Berlin 1900-

16
Ἐξώφυλλο: Ἡ Μονὴ τοῦ Ἁγίου Σάββα.
Μικρογραφία ἀπὸ τὸν κώδικα 129, f. 28r,
τῆς Μονῆς Δοχειαρίου. Βλ. Οἱ θησαυροὶ
τοῦ Ἁγίου Ὄρους. Σειρὰ Α΄. Εἰκονογραφη
μένα χειρόγραφα, τόμ. Γ΄, ἐκδ. Ἐκδοτικὴ
Ἀθηνῶν, Ἀθήνα 1979, σ. 174.