Palama’s Theology, a hermeneutical key

There are exegetes who intend to see St. Gregory Palamas in a non-patristic context, disregarding the fact that the novelty of Palamas’ theology is a fundamental reinterpretation of accents, going back to Origen and Dionysius the Areopagite, and an affirmation of the religious experience’s role. We will try to expose here the main differences between modern exegetes of the twentieth century, regarding the theology of Palamas. In fact, as shown by Georges Florovsky, Palamas’ tradition was the only approach able to pick up the glove challenge that modern secularism addressed to Christianity. The present theological analysis focuses on three authors who have influenced neo-patristic Hesychast movement of the past century: J. Meyendorff, I. Romanides and D. Staniloae. The lecture given by J. Meyendorff to Palamas’ theology in an existential key as a Biblical-Christological corrective brought to the evagriano-dionisian Platonism as sacramental and incarnational mystic was dismantled in an unbreakable critique of Romanidis. Romanides emphasizes constantly the deviation of the understanding on the Logos revelation in the Old Testament (Augustine adopting in this regard an eunomian position, arguing that the uncreated divine essence and energy are the same). He is considered the most advised Orthodox researcher of Augustine. On the other hand, Father Staniloae sees in Palama’s theology an hermeneutic key, because in his desire to reconcile the immutability of God with His „becoming” or His „historicity”, the modern Western theology is moving towards St. Palamas’ conception of the difference between unchanged being and the changing uncreated energies of God. For Fairy Lilienfeld, Father Staniloae is one of the mostsignificant representatives of the contemporary Orthodox theologians, who emphasize the Palamit hesychasm as a genuine orthodox thinking.