Many Orthodox Christians have been told that Rome rejects St. Gregory Palamas, and that with him it rejects the Eastern hope of becoming one with God. Is that true?
Short answer: No. The Catholic Church has never dogmatically condemned St. Gregory Palamas or his distinction between God's essence and His energies. Melkite Catholic parishes, in full communion with the pope, keep his feast on the Second Sunday of the Great Fast, and Catholic teaching on deification is as bold as the East's: "For the Son of God became man so that we might become God" (CCC 460). There are real theological questions between Palamite and Thomist theology, and Catholics should not pretend otherwise. But they are questions between schools within one faith, not a reason for two Churches. The real question is communion with St. Peter's successor in the Catholic Church.
Key verses on knowing and sharing God
- "so that through them you may come to share in the divine nature" (2 Peter 1:4)
- "who alone has immortality, who dwells in unapproachable light, and whom no human being has seen or can see." (1 Timothy 6:16)
- "No one has ever seen God. The only Son, God, who is at the Father's side, has revealed him." (John 1:18)
- "we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is." (1 John 3:2)
- "And he was transfigured before them; his face shone like the sun and his clothes became white as light." (Matthew 17:2)
Scripture quotations are from the New American Bible, Revised Edition (NABRE), © 2010, 1991, 1986, 1970 Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, Washington, D.C. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
What the Orthodox Believe
St. Gregory Palamas (1296–1359), monk of Mount Athos and archbishop of Thessalonica, defended the hesychasts, monks who prayed the Jesus Prayer in stillness and testified that they beheld the light of Christ's Transfiguration. The Orthodox Church in America's life of the saint tells the story: "About the year 1330 the learned monk Barlaam had arrived in Constantinople from Calabria, in Italy." "Saying that it was impossible to know the essence of God, he declared mental prayer a heretical error." He also "attempted to demonstrate the created, material nature of the light of Tabor."
Against Barlaam, St. Gregory taught that God is "unapproachable in His Essence," yet "reveals Himself through His energies," which are "neither material nor created" and "are directed towards the world and are able to be perceived." The OCA records that "On May 27, 1341 the Council accepted the position of Saint Gregory Palamas," that "In 1351 the Council of Blachernae solemnly upheld the Orthodoxy of his teachings," and that "In 1368 he was canonized at a Constantinople Council." The Orthodox honor him on the Second Sunday of Great Lent.
In his own words (One Hundred and Fifty Chapters 75): "There are three realities in God, namely, substance, energy and a Trinity of divine hypostases." The saints "are not united to God in substance," and so "those deemed worthy of union with God are united to God in energy." God is "incomprehensible in substance" yet "comprehensible from his creatures according to his divine energies" (ch. 81). And he denied that this divides God: "God is indivisibly divided and united divisibly" and "experiences neither multiplicity nor composition" (ch. 81).
Vladimir Lossky summed it up: "Wholly unknowable in His essence, God wholly reveals Himself in His energies."
The case at its strongest: if we could share God's essence, we would become God by nature and creatures would dissolve into the Creator; if what we share were only something created, we would not truly share God at all. The essence-energies distinction, the Orthodox argue, is the only way to keep both God's transcendence and real deification. Many Orthodox theologians add that Western "created grace" cannot do justice to theosis.
What Catholics Actually Teach
On deification, the Catholic Church speaks as boldly as the East. The Catechism teaches: "The Word became flesh to make us 'partakers of the divine nature'" (2 Peter 1:4), then quotes St. Irenaeus, St. Athanasius ("For the Son of God became man so that we might become God"), and St. Thomas Aquinas: "The only-begotten Son of God, wanting to make us sharers in his divinity, assumed our nature, so that he, made man, might make men gods" (CCC 460). "Grace is a participation in the life of God" (CCC 1997); "It is the sanctifying or deifying grace received in Baptism" (CCC 1999). Quoting St. Athanasius again: "those in whom the Spirit dwells are divinized" (CCC 1988). Pope St. John Paul II wrote that the "theology of divinization remains one of the achievements particularly dear to Eastern Christian thought," and that "deification already begins on earth" (Orientale Lumen 6).
On God's simplicity, the Catholic Church has defined dogma. The Fourth Lateran Council (1215): "We firmly believe and simply confess that there is only one true God, eternal and immeasurable, almighty, unchangeable, incomprehensible and ineffable, Father, Son and holy Spirit, three persons but one absolutely simple essence, substance or nature" (Lateran IV, const. 1). The First Vatican Council (1870): "Since he is one, singular, completely simple and unchangeable spiritual substance, he must be declared to be in reality and in essence, distinct from the world" (Dei Filius, ch. 1).
On the vision of God, Pope Benedict XII defined in 1336 that the blessed "have seen and do see the divine essence with an intuitive vision, and even face to face, without the mediation of any creature" (Benedictus Deus, quoted in CCC 1023). Yet even then God is never exhausted: "Because of his transcendence, God cannot be seen as he is, unless he himself opens up his mystery to man's immediate contemplation and gives him the capacity for it" (CCC 1028).
On theological diversity, the Second Vatican Council taught: "In the study of revelation East and West have followed different methods, and have developed differently their understanding and confession of God's truth." Hence "these various theological expressions are to be considered often as mutually complementary rather than conflicting." The authentic Eastern traditions "have their roots in Holy Scripture," and the Council declares that this whole heritage "of spirituality and liturgy, of discipline and theology" belongs "to the full Catholic and apostolic character of the Church" (Unitatis Redintegratio 17).
On St. Gregory himself, here is exactly what can be said. The Catholic Church has issued no dogmatic condemnation of him or of the essence-energies distinction. He is not on the Latin Church's universal calendar, but he is honored in some Eastern Catholic Churches in full communion with Rome: Melkite Catholic parishes commemorate him on the Second Sunday of the Great Fast. A Byzantine Catholic liturgy booklet (Archeparchy of Pittsburgh music site) gives his troparion for that Sunday, and a Ukrainian Catholic parish in Chicago announced, "Today the Church remembers St. Gregory Palamas, the great theologian of the 14th century." Practice is not uniform across every Eastern Catholic Church, and his feast is a matter of each Church's own liturgical calendar. St. John Paul II, noting that the truths of the Immaculate Conception and the Assumption "were first expounded by certain Eastern theologians," added: "one need only recall great writers like Gregory Palamas (†1359)" (General Audience, Nov. 12, 1997). That is an honorable mention by a pope, not a canonization and not an endorsement of every Palamite thesis. In short: the Catholic Church has neither condemned nor dogmatically endorsed the Palamite synthesis.
What Catholics do not teach:
- That Palamas is a condemned heretic. No council or pope has defined that.
- That grace is a mere created "thing" standing between us and God. Grace is "the gratuitous gift that God makes to us of his own life" (CCC 1999), "a participation in the life of God" (CCC 1997).
- That the blessed comprehend God. St. Thomas Aquinas: "It is impossible for any created intellect to comprehend God" (Summa Theologiae I, q. 12, a. 7).
- That every Palamite formulation is defined Catholic doctrine. It is not. Catholic theologians hold a range of views on whether, and how, the Palamite distinction can be reconciled with defined dogma, including God's absolute simplicity; the Church has not settled that question, and every Catholic is bound by the dogma itself.
It all points to Christ. Deification is not a human technique; it is Jesus Christ sharing His own life. "The Word became flesh to make us 'partakers of the divine nature'" (CCC 460). The light the hesychasts sought is the light that shone from Christ's face on Tabor, and every grace East or West speaks of comes "From his fullness" (John 1:16).
The Biblical Case
1. We truly share the divine nature
St. Peter writes that God's promises are given "so that through them you may come to share in the divine nature" (2 Peter 1:4). Christ prays "that they also may be in us" and says, "I have given them the glory you gave me" (John 17:21–22). Catholics and Orthodox agree: salvation is not only pardon but union, a real sharing in God's own life. The Catholic Church calls it "deifying grace" (CCC 1999).
2. God remains beyond us
Scripture is just as clear that God is not swallowed by His creatures. "No one can see me and live" (Exodus 33:20); God "dwells in unapproachable light, and... no human being has seen or can see" Him (1 Timothy 6:16). "No one has ever seen God. The only Son, God, who is at the Father's side, has revealed him" (John 1:18). Both traditions affirm this. The Orthodox say God is unparticipable in His essence; Catholics say God is incomprehensible, never contained by any created mind (Aquinas, ST I, q. 12, a. 7). Both are guarding the same truth: we become God by grace, never by nature.
3. Yet the blessed will see Him
St. John promises: "we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is" (1 John 3:2). "At present we see indistinctly, as in a mirror, but then face to face. At present I know partially; then I shall know fully, as I am fully known" (1 Corinthians 13:12). This is why the Catholic Church defined that the blessed see the divine essence "face to face, without the mediation of any creature" (CCC 1023). The point of that definition is that heaven is not union with a created substitute for God. St. Gregory Palamas explains it differently, but he pressed the same concern against Barlaam, who held the light of Tabor to be created.
4. Tabor shows what grace is
Jesus "was transfigured before them; his face shone like the sun and his clothes became white as light" (Matthew 17:2). The apostles saw God's glory in the flesh of Christ: "we saw his glory, the glory as of the Father's only Son, full of grace and truth" (John 1:14). Whatever one's school, the light of Tabor is the glory of the eternal Son, which He gives to His Church (John 17:22).
5. Unity is the point
Christ gives His glory "so that they may be one, as we are one" (John 17:22). Deification and unity are one gift.
Objections Answered
(a) "Rome's doctrine of absolute simplicity makes the energies impossible. Catholicism must reject Palamas."
At its strongest: Lateran IV and Vatican I define God as "absolutely simple" and "completely simple." If God has a really distinct essence and energies, He seems composed. So either Palamas is wrong or Rome is.
Answer: The conflict depends on what "distinction" means, and St. Gregory himself denied composition: God "experiences neither multiplicity nor composition" (Chapters 81). The Catholic Church has defined simplicity; she has not defined that every Palamite way of speaking contradicts it, and she has never condemned St. Gregory. Theologians on both sides still debate how to understand the distinction. But St. Basil the Great, a Father both Churches venerate, already wrote: "The operations are various, and the essence simple," and "His operations come down to us, but His essence remains beyond our reach" (Letter 234). Both Churches hold God's simplicity and the reality of His operations. A disagreement over how to explain both is a disagreement within one faith.
(b) "Benedictus Deus says the blessed see God's essence. Palamas says the essence is unparticipable. That is a flat contradiction."
At its strongest: Rome defined that the saints "see the divine essence." St. Gregory, whose teaching the Orthodox councils of 1341 and 1351 upheld, taught that God is "unapproachable in His Essence" (as the OCA summarizes him). One must be wrong.
Answer: This is the most serious point, and we will not wave it away. Catholics hold Benedictus Deus as defined doctrine. But the definition must be read precisely. It teaches that the blessed see God Himself, "without the mediation of any creature," not that they comprehend Him: no created intellect can (Aquinas, ST I, q. 12, a. 7), and God gives the capacity for the vision (CCC 1028). Palamas, for his part, says the saints are "not united to God in substance," meaning they never become God by nature, which Catholics also deny. Seeing God face to face by grace and being God by essence are different claims. Whether every Palamite formula can be reconciled with Benedictus Deus is a question theologians still debate; neither side should claim more than its Church has defined. What both affirm is the same hope: the saints will see God Himself, not a created substitute (1 John 3:2).
(c) "Western 'created grace' means Catholics never truly share God."
At its strongest: If grace is a created quality in the soul, then what the Christian receives is something less than God. That is Barlaam's error in another form.
Answer: Read what the Catholic Church actually teaches. Grace is "the gratuitous gift that God makes to us of his own life" (CCC 1999). The Holy Spirit Himself is given: "(God) gave himself to us through his Spirit" (CCC 1988, quoting St. Athanasius). Catholic theology speaks of "created grace" to name the real change God works in the soul, but it always holds that God Himself, the uncreated Gift, dwells in the justified. The Catechism's own language is the East's: "deifying grace," "partakers of the divine nature," "made men gods" (CCC 460, 1999). That is not a Church that has lost theosis.
(d) "Even if Rome tolerates Palamas, his councils are Orthodox councils. Accepting him means accepting Orthodoxy."
At its strongest: The 1341 and 1351 councils that vindicated St. Gregory were held after the schism, apart from Rome. If his teaching is true, those councils were right, and the Church that held them is the true Church.
Answer: A true theological insight does not make a separated council ecumenical. The Catholic Church gladly receives truths that "have their roots in Holy Scripture" from the Eastern tradition (UR 17), whether that is a Byzantine liturgy, a Syriac hymn, or a fourteenth-century theologian. Melkite Catholics show that one can honor St. Gregory Palamas in full communion with St. Peter's successor; an Orthodox Christian who enters the Catholic Church need not give him up. The question that decides which Church is Christ's is not the energies; it is communion with the rock on which Christ built His Church (see Was the Pope's Primacy Recognized in the First Millennium?).
The Early Church Agrees
The Fathers both Churches venerate teach the two truths that Palamas and Aquinas each guard: real deification and God's transcendence.
- St. Irenaeus of Lyons (Against Heresies 3.19.1, c. AD 180): "For it was for this end that the Word of God was made man, and He who was the Son of God became the Son of man, that man, having been taken into the Word, and receiving the adoption, might become the son of God" (newadvent.org). The Catechism quotes this passage in CCC 460.
- St. Athanasius of Alexandria (On the Incarnation 54.3, c. AD 318–335): "For He was made man that we might be made God" (ccel.org). The Catechism renders the same line, "For the Son of God became man so that we might become God" (CCC 460).
- St. Basil the Great (Letter 234, c. AD 376): "The operations are various, and the essence simple," and "His operations come down to us, but His essence remains beyond our reach" (newadvent.org). This is the patristic root the Orthodox rightly claim for Palamas, and the Catholic Church honors St. Basil as a Doctor of the Church.
- St. Cyprian of Carthage (Letter 58, mid-3rd century), quoted in CCC 1028: "How great will your glory and happiness be, to be allowed to see God, to be honored with sharing the joy of salvation and eternal light with Christ your Lord and God" (CCC 1028).
The Fathers held deification and divine transcendence together. Thomist and Palamite theology are both attempts to explain what they already believed.
Conclusion
St. Gregory Palamas is not a wall between Catholics and Orthodox. The Catholic Church has never condemned him; Melkite Catholics keep his feast in full communion with the pope; and the Catechism teaches deification in the words of the same Fathers he loved. Real questions remain about how to explain God's simplicity and the vision of His essence, and honest theologians on both sides still work on them. But a dispute between theological schools is not a reason to stand at separate altars.
So the energies cannot be what keeps the Orthodox apart from Rome. What remains is the question Christ settled at Caesarea Philippi.
Come home. In the Catholic Church you could keep St. Gregory Palamas, the Jesus Prayer, and the light of Tabor, as Melkite Catholics already do. You already possess true sacraments and much of the apostolic faith, in "a certain, although imperfect, communion with the Catholic Church" (CCC 838). Those gifts draw their power "from the fullness of grace and truth that Christ has entrusted to the Catholic Church" and "are in themselves calls to 'Catholic unity'" (CCC 819). The Eucharist is the sacrament of the Church's unity, yet your true Eucharist is celebrated apart from the successor of St. Peter, on whom Christ built His Church (Matthew 16:18). We invite you into full communion with St. Peter's successor, the bishop of Rome, in the Catholic Church.
Your next step: Come to Mass or Divine Liturgy at your local Catholic church. You can find one near you at MassTimes.org. When you're ready, call the parish office and ask to speak with the priest about entering full communion with the Catholic Church. Read our guide: How Do I Become Catholic? Not ready yet? Get our free pocket guide below and keep learning.
FAQ
Is St. Gregory Palamas a Catholic saint? He is honored in some Eastern Catholic Churches in full communion with Rome: Melkite Catholic parishes commemorate him on the Second Sunday of the Great Fast, and some other Byzantine Catholic parishes, including Ukrainian Greek Catholic ones, keep his memory too. He is not on the Latin Church's universal calendar. The Catholic Church has never condemned him, nor has she dogmatically endorsed every point of his theology.
Do Catholics believe in theosis? Yes. The Catechism teaches that the Son of God became man "so that we might become God" and calls sanctifying grace "deifying grace" (CCC 460, 1999). We become God by grace, never by nature. (For how this differs from the Latter-day Saint idea of exaltation, see Can Men Become Gods?)
If the energies aren't the problem, what is? Above all, the papacy, and with it the questions it decides, such as the filioque (see The Filioque) and which councils are ecumenical. See Is the Orthodox Church the True Church?
Sources
Scripture (NABRE, bible.usccb.org): Exodus 33:20; Matthew 16:18; Matthew 17:1–2; John 1:14, 16, 18; John 17:21–22; 1 Corinthians 13:12; 1 Timothy 6:16; 2 Peter 1:3–4; 1 John 3:2.
Catechism of the Catholic Church (vatican.va): 460; 819, 838; 1023, 1028; 1988; 1997, 1999.
Church documents: Fourth Lateran Council (1215), const. 1; Benedict XII, Benedictus Deus (1336); First Vatican Council, Dei Filius, ch. 1 (1870); Second Vatican Council, Unitatis Redintegratio 17; Pope St. John Paul II, Orientale Lumen 6 (1995); General Audience, Nov. 12, 1997; St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae I, q. 12.
Church Fathers: Irenaeus, Against Heresies 3.19.1; Athanasius, On the Incarnation 54 (NPNF2 vol. 4); Basil the Great, Letter 234; Cyprian, Letter 58, in CCC 1028.
Orthodox sources: Orthodox Church in America, "Saint Gregory Palamas, Archbishop of Thessalonica"; Gregory Palamas, The One Hundred and Fifty Chapters 75, 81 (Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies ed., 1988); Vladimir Lossky, "Essences and Energies," The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church.
Eastern Catholic practice: St. Ann Melkite Catholic Church (Waterford, CT); Byzantine Catholic Divine Liturgy, Second Sunday of the Great Fast (2018); St. Joseph the Betrothed Ukrainian Catholic Church (Chicago).