Did Saint Gregory Palamas Teach The Development Of The Doctrine?

Abstract

The paper examines whether St Gregory Palamas could be attributed with teaching some sort of the doctrinal development. That this is the case has been argued in various forms by theologians and scholars of the 20th century, both those who have criticized Palamas and those who have often been regarded as representatives of what is called the Neo-Palamite theology of the Orthodox Church. Such thesis has relied heavily on his use of the term anaptyxis in the Tomos of the 1351. Synod. In the paper it is argued that such self-understanding of his relation to the patristic tradition cannot be justified by textual evidence. Through the analysis of the Tomos of 1341, his polemical writings against Gregory Akindynos and the Tomos of 1351 it is shown that Palamas consistently presented his own teaching as a faithful exposition of the words of the Holy Fathers rather than their development.