The Sacramental Ethos of the Hesychasm (Towards a Simultaneous Reading of St. Gregory Palamas and St. Nicholas Cabasilas)

Authors:

Pages: 5-18
DOI: https://doi.org/10.54664/ZPWV2703

Abstract:

The study demonstrates the need for a simultaneous reading of St. Gregory Palamas and St. Nicholas Cabasilas as a hermeneutical prerequisite for approaching the sacramental ethos of the Hesychasm. The juxtaposition of the two great Hesychast theologians has become the “norm” of the 20th c. research tradition, the result of one-sided readings and “reductionism.” This opposition is usually articulated by means of the alleged antinomy of Christological sacramental spirituality and Hesychast ascetic practice (keeping God’s commandments, practicing unceasing prayer and silence), on the one hand, and the mystical contemplation of the imperishable light, on the other. In this interpretatie narrative of Hesychast theology and spirituality, there is no room for the sacramental hermeneutic of the life in Christ. The deconstruction of this narrative will prove necessary if one undertakes a simultaneous reading of St. Paul. Gregory Palamas and St. Nicholas Cabasilas, who conceptualise the sacramental and ascetical aspects of the life in Christ in their organic unity. The Simultaneous Reading is introduced as an important hermeneutical principle through which Hesychasttheology and spirituality can be explored “free of ” one-sided reductionist interpretations. A key premise of this hermeneutical approach is the concept of “sacramental Hesychasm” proposed by Stavros Giagkazoglou, through which postmodern theological dichotomies are overcome: Christology-pneumatology, sacraments-ascesis, institution-charisma, communal-personal ethos, eucharistic assembly-celebratory prayer, etc. In this horizon, the sacramental and ascetical aspects of the life in Christ are experienced and understood in their organic unity and interpenetration. The Simultaneous Reading of St. Gregory Palamas and St. Nicholas Cabasilas is both a hermeneutical prerequisite and an ecclesial criterion for the hermeneutical approach to the Hesychast theology and ethos. In this key, all the elements of the Hesychast ethos can be understood as charismatic fruits of sacramental participation in the body of the Church: the ascesis is the personal existential effort to preserve the grace received in the sacraments, and all its elements are charismatic fruits of the Eucharistic ethos of the Church. Thus ascesis acquires a distinctly Eucharistic connotation, the contemplation of the incorruptible light is seen as the basis of Eucharistic Christophany, and deification proves to be the transfiguration of human life in a Euchsristic Christ-like existence.. The author’s conclusion is that the simultaneous reading of St. Gregory Palamas and St. Nicholas Cabasila affirms the principle of the unity and perichoresis of the sacramental and ascetical life as a hermeneutical key to understanding the Hesychast theology and spirituality.

Keywords:

St. Gregory Palamas, St. Nicholas Cabasilas, sacramental hermeneutics, hesychast theology, ecclesiology, life in Christ, Divine Eucharist, sacramental ethos, ascetic life, deification.

Download

NA