"When they [the schismatics] joined you, the body of the Church grew, its members grew together into one whole [...]. The Church is being strengthened [...]; and Christ is seen as our only head, holding us with Himself and with each other by the union of one faith and one wisdom and one Church" ("The Word Spoken Before Philadelphia to the Most Christian Fulfillment...", sermon against the schismatic Arsenius, see Sinkewicz 1988, 70. 96–101, cf. Sinkewicz 1992).

"The Son of God became a sinless man for your sake, and by means of holy Baptism and the precious blood poured out on the cross, He recreated you [...] As a certain Paradise, He planted local churches and gathered us into them; but He established one Church in faith and wisdom [...] The trees [of these Gardens of Eden] are Orthodox pastors [...] sent by appointment [...] for them churches and placed for the enlightenment and prosperity of all Christians [...] the bishop is a mediator between God and people. For the people, he constantly sends up petitions, supplications, prayers, thanksgiving to God [...] If, however, the bread and wine offered by pious priests on the altar as gifts, transformed by the inspiration of the All-Holy Spirit, are truly the Body and Blood of Christ and are spoken, being priestly Orthodox faithful priests, then if anyone does not accept them, approaches them below, but denies communion with them, does he not reduce them to something filthy? […] Does he not bring down Christ to a mere man, like the Jews?" (Sinkewicz 1998, 56. 79–84 et al.; see also Meyendorff 1997, 15).

It is difficult to disagree with the opinion that "it is rare to find in Byzantine writers such a vivid in its sacramental essence exposition of Orthodox ecclesiology, the foundations of the hierarchical structure of the Church" and then – "The undoubted merit of St. Theoliptus lies in the inclusion of the spiritual tradition of the Eastern Christian mystics – often with a spiritualist bias – within the framework of Christocentric ecclesiology; it heralds the sacramental and theological renewal that we find in Saints Gregory Palamas and Nicholas Cabasilas" (Meyendorff 1997, 15).

Much in the texts of Theoliptus himself, and in the texts of researchers who studied him [410], makes it possible to reconstruct a religious type similar — ceteris paribus — to that which was revealed somewhat later by Sergius of Radonezh. Caution requires us to dwell on a more flexible conclusion: much in the teaching of Theoliptus is, in fact, very close to the mood of Sergius and to the very spirit of his religious work. At the same time, it must be remembered, of course, that, unlike Theoliptus, Sergius was not a theologian and had no inclination to write at all. His only known texts are oral, and they are conveyed in the Life only in a relatively authentic form. Finally, we have no information about Sergius' acquaintance with the ideas of Theoliptus and in general about the fame of this figure in Russia of the fourteenth century. In the end, however, all this is not an insurmountable obstacle, if only because the "Theoliptus" heritage was largely assimilated by Gregory Palamas, who in his "Triads" mentioned the name of Theoliptus with high reverence and deep gratitude. There can be no doubt that much of Theoliptus was also assimilated by Gregory Palamas [412].

There is no need here to speak in any detail about Gregory Palamas and Palamism, or in general about the hesychast movement in the fourteenth century, or to decide the question of whether Palamas was right or wrong in his theological debates with Barlaam.

As for specific information on these topics, there is a very extensive and multiplying literature in recent years, of which it is appropriate to cite here only the main works — Modest 1860; The idea of obozh. 1909, 165–213; Minin 1911–1914; Sokolov 1913; Hausherr 1927; Hausherr 1956, 5–40, 247–285; Jugie 1932, 17–78; Krivoshein 1936, 99–154; Staniloae 1938; Salaville 1940; Salaville 1944; Salaville 1947; Cyprian (Kern) 1942, 102–131; Kern 1947; Cyprian (Kern) 1950; Meyendorff 1953, 87–120; Meyendorff 1954, 38–50; Meyendorff 1957; Meyendorff 1957a, 547–552; Meyendorff 1959 [= Meyendorff 1997, an excellent edition with an extensive and highly qualified commentary, see also Afterword]; Meyendorff 1959a; Meyendorff 1971; Meyendorff 1971a, 53–71; Meyendorff 1973, 543–547; Meyendorff 1973a [text by Gregory Palamas]; Meyendorff 1974a, 111–124; Meyendorff 1974, 291–305; Meyendorff 1990; Joumet 1960, 430–452; Guillaumont

1962; Lossky 1967, 123–137; Lossky 1968, 76–77, 49–64; Lossky 1972; Lossky 1991, 53–70; Prokhorov 1966, 81–110; Prokhorov 1968, 86–108; Prokhorov 1972, 334 ff.; Prokhorov 1974, 317–324; Prokhorov 1978; Prokhorov 1979; Prokhorov 1986, 182–204; Uspensky 1967; Goleizovsky 1968, 198–203; Obolensky 1970; Obolensky 1971, 301–307; Obolensky 1976, 8–26; Florovsky 1972; Florovsky 1996, 107–116 [= Florovsky 1959–1960, 119–131]; Alpatov 1972, 190–194; Stiemon 1972; Likhachev 1973; Medvedev 1976; Sinkewicz 1982, 181–242; Sinkewicz 1988, 46–95; Sinkewicz 1992, 1–66; Bibikhin 1995, 344–381; Petrov 1997, 395–419 and others (cf. also a number of fairly complete bibliographies of the issue); cf. also the edition of the main text of Palamas — Meyendorff 1959a (here is also the translation), as well as the translation into Russian — Bibikhin 1995 (it is worth noting Beseda 1994).

As for the rightness or wrongness of Gregory Palamas, there was both the first and the second (the most vulnerable part of Palamas' theology is in that part of his teaching where the question is raised about the correlation of essence-ούσία and energy-ένέργεια of the Divinity, and about the created or uncreated light of Tabor). But the main thing was still "the empirical testimony that in the things of the world there is fulfilled an invisible not only eternal, but also uncreated meaning, a testimony which, as a link in the unceasing history of spiritual revelation, grew up in the hothouse of faith, in the innermost depths of the world, whose constant support was not rational self-accountability, but ascetic righteousness and holy eldership. The light of Tabor, says the Synodikon of the Sunday of Orthodoxy, is "the ineffable glory of the Godhead, the temporal glory of the Son, the Kingdom of God, the true and beloved Beauty." This bold confession of love for God can be considered the true testament of St. Gregory Palamas" (Bibikhin 1995, 377–378). Is it necessary to speak of the general balance of hesychasm, in the center of which was the theology of Palamas—the flowering of theology and its appeal to those urgent questions that in the patristic period were either indicated only in general, without special discussions, or were not raised at all; a new rise in icon painting under the Palaiologos (see Uspensky 1967); liturgical creativity, the transformation of monastic life, the general renewal of life in its various aspects (Meyendorff wrote that the hesychasts "breathed new life into the ossified and sclerotizing Christian society of Byzantium")!

Strictly speaking, the dispute between Palamas and the Barlaamites has not been put to an end, because the price of victory in this dispute between revelation and logic, intuition and rationalism is too great, too great and heavy a responsibility falls on the victor (the Church's acceptance of the teaching of Palamas inevitably meant that the door through which it was possible to enter the Renaissance [we are not talking here about the "Palaiologos" Renaissance], turned out to be closed). But Gregory Palamas's credits undoubtedly include the completion of the liberation of the Orthodox tradition from Neoplatonism [413], the indication of the role of "empirical evidence" regarding the mysteries that are inaccessible to philosophy (and science) and reveal themselves in Revelation, and, of course, the "bold confession of love for God" itself.

Most accurately, and without closing his eyes to the weak points of Palamism, acknowledging the incompleteness of a number of conclusions, without absolutizing what does not claim to be "absolute," Meyendorff sums up the theology of Gregory Palamas briefly, and this result should be heeded:

Was the teaching of St. Gregory Palamas, who rejected the secularism of the Modern Age, able to offer an alternative to it? Was it not, in fact, only negative obscurantism? It seems that we have been able to show that the latter statement would not be true. St. Gregory Palamas attacked not his own value of "external philosophy," but its claim to be adequate to the Mystery of Christianity. From this point of view, the teaching of St. Gregory Palamas represents a new and decisive step in the Eastern Christian tradition in the direction of liberation from the categories of Neoplatonism, which have always remained a great temptation for Greek mysticism. This is true not only on the metaphysical plane, where the personalistic and Christocentric thought of St. George breaks away from the ambiguity of Dionysian apophaticism, but also, and mainly, on the plane of anthropology. Between Plato's dualism and Biblical monism, the teacher of silence makes a decisive choice: man is not a spirit imprisoned in matter and striving to free himself from it, but a being called by his very composite character to establish the Kingdom of God in matter and spirit in their indissoluble union. These most important truths of Christianity were proclaimed and affirmed by the Eastern Church at one of the most critical moments in the history of Christianity, in an era when Christian thought was threatened by internal decay. In this way, the victory of St. Gregory Palamas acquires a value independent of time, not as an all-encompassing system capable of providing an answer to all problems, but as an indication of the direction in which to go.