[…] we find in the total scope of his [Gregory Palamas' thought] a constructive response to the challenge posed to Christianity by the Modern Age—a personal-existential theology and asceticism, freed from Plato's spiritualism, which wholly includes man in the new life."

(Meyendorff 1997, 326).

It is very likely that it is precisely this "personal-being" principle and the complete, entire, inclusion in the new life that to a high degree characterize Sergius of Radonezh himself, the essence of his religious type, his nature. Although there is no reliable information about whether Sergius knew the teaching of Gregory Palamas, and if so, to what extent, to what extent, there is no doubt that he not only heard about Palamas and his teaching, but also imagined the main thing in this new theology.

Such confidence is rooted in considerations of various kinds. First of all, Moscow, from the time when Metropolitan Peter moved to it, and especially from the time when the Greek Theognost (1327-1353) became metropolitan, was in close religious communion with Byzantium, first of all with Constantinople, with Athos, and, more broadly, with the Balkans. On the whole, despite all the difficulties experienced by the South Slavic and especially the East Slavic peoples in their historical fate, Slavia Orthodoxa was in a living and creative spiritual connection with Byzantium, and the entire "Orthodox" space lived a special life, being permeable by the spirit of communion, community and harmony. For any good initiative, this space was transparent, and in this context, the Russian Church and Russian holiness could indeed be understood as the "Russian" part of the Universal Church, seen with a broad and unbiased eye. A narrowed view, however, will see "differences," and disorders, and contradictions, and will be right in its own way, but the bearers of such a view, as soon as it goes beyond the limits of empiricism, have no right to judge the whole: at best, they have only an advisory vote at this trial. But within this universal "Orthodox" space, Russia had a special place. Geographically far to the northeast of Constantinople, Athos, and the Balkans, Russia itself was special in this sense alone. And the large, moreover, in various respects dangerous, distances then, in the fourteenth century, meant that "long" time, which significantly devalues information: between the question and the answer, the plan and its implementation, there was this "long" time, because of which the answer and the implementation of the plan were postponed so much that they often became obsolete or meaningless: the situation in the center of Universal Orthodoxy changed faster. than the ability to perceive these changes in Russia, because of the "technical" difficulties of communication. True, spiritual questions, theological ideas, forms and methods of knowledge of God and communion with God belonged to those fundamental and ever-unfolding phenomena in which any final point turns out to be temporary and relative. In this area, the factor of time itself was weakened to a certain extent: one and the same phenomenon or event, an idea, revealed itself in "different" time in Byzantium and in Russia, and the recalculation of time was necessary, and the historian of Russia cannot but take into account the role of this "long" time and the "wide" space compared with it. In any case, the "new" from the Greeks came to Russia, to Moscow, with a six-month or one-year delay.

There were two real ways to restore this deficit of connections and information in Russia [416] – to develop and sharpen one's receptivity to the point where the "hundredth intonations" are caught and through them – both consciously and subconsciously – what still has to be is restored (firstly), or to be included in the same circulatory system with Byzantium, with Universal Orthodoxy, to synchronize the beating of the pulse of spiritual life. to become a kind of Russian Byzantium of great ascetics and theologians, the high order of the Christian spirit, the sacralization of life (secondly). In Russia, both methods were done, and both of these methods have their roots in a common source and ultimately presuppose each other. But in both cases, there was a need for points of support, life-giving sources of Christian life. Both in Russia of the fourteenth century and partly in the century that followed it, there was an amazing breakthrough into the world of the Christian word and Christian art, a phenomenon that is somewhat extensively designated as the "second South Slavic influence" (cf. Sobolevsky 1894 and others), the "Pre-Renaissance," and so on. Unlike many other crisis situations, to which a quick, serious, responsible, and in this sense fateful response must be given, this time Russia was not late, did not miss her historic step [417] and, still under the yoke and in humiliation, in a rather heavy dependence, she at an accelerated pace, with amazing energy, behind which stood a genuine spiritual thirst. began to acquire what became the main means of the subsequent state, political, civil (and partly economic) liberation in a century and a half—that spiritual culture which, rooted in Christianity, was formed as a truly Christian culture. It is important to note that only on its lower layers did it reveal its "illustrativeness", which is always only an imperfect copy of what is depicted. At its own heights, like Rublev's "Trinity", this spiritual culture was least of all an illustration, a copy, a commentary, but it revealed itself as authentic Christianity, created here and now, live.

But the relations of Muscovite Rus with Byzantium and the Southern Slavs alone would probably not have been enough to insist on the acquaintance of Sergius of Radonezh with the theological teaching of Palamas, but it seems to be enough to hear this name. Of course, the chances that Sergius could have learned something about Palamas are increased by the Russian monks who formed a kind of colony in Constantinople, the "bookish" people who copied manuscripts and sometimes translated them, and the Greeks who visited Moscow from time to time. Interest in the book, curiosity about it, in everything new in this book world or the old, but remaining unknown, was characteristic of people of this circle both in Moscow (it is enough to name Metropolitan Alexis of Moscow) and in the Trinity. A 16th-century miniature from the Life of Sergius very clearly depicts the copying of books. The well-thought-out and complete forms of this action allow us to assume that during the reign of Sergius there was something like this in the monastery (see Tr.-Serg. Lavra, ill. 224). From curiosity about the manuscript – from its handwriting to its meaning – from diligence and diligence, the professionalism of the scribe gradually took shape, and the scribe himself drew him deeper and deeper into the circle of book interests, into the hot space of theological disputes that took place in Byzantium, and made it necessary to follow everything that stood out from the middle level. Therefore, it is difficult to imagine that Gregory Palamas could not have been known in the Trinity in the fourteenth century, and in this case, the main difficulty in chronology is when the name of the Metropolitan of Thessalonica became known in the Sergius Monastery.

Nevertheless, there is an even stronger argument in favor of the fact that Sergius could not have been unaware of the name of Gregory Palamas and, at least in its main features, of the teachings of Palamism. Such an argument should be considered the Palamism of the Moscow metropolitans Theognost [418], Alexis and Cyprian, who occupied the metropolitan cathedra from 1328 to 1406, of which six and a half decades accounted for the life period allotted to Sergius. All these three metropolitans were undoubtedly Palamites, especially Alexis, who spent quite a lot of time in Constantinople, which is variously defined as a year, then as two years (two trips in the period 1353-1355; Golubinsky 1900, Vol. II, 190 dates the second journey to 1356), and to Cyprian, whose connection with Sergius is documented. Strictly speaking, there is no definite information about Sergius' meetings with Theognost, a Greek Muscophile (in particular, who did much for the canonization of the first Moscow metropolitan of Perth), but his name is mentioned in the Life of Sergius in a characteristic context:

And then he reksha, and took both the blessing and the consecration from the saint. And the priestess came from the city from Metropolitan Theognastos, and brought with her the priesthood, and the antimise, and the relics of the holy martyrs, and other things, which were needed for the consecration of the church. And then the church was consecrated in the name of the Holy Trinity by the Right Reverend Archbishop Theognost, Metropolitan of Kiev and All Russia, under the Grand Duke Simeon Ivanovich [...]

So, in a sense, Theognost also stood at the beginning of the Trinity. But if the Palamism of Theognost can be guessed at with more than less certainty, then in the case of Alexis, Metropolitan of Moscow, there is no room for doubt. Arriving in Constantinople for the first time in 1353, shortly after the famous Council of 1351, at which the Orthodox Church confirmed the teaching of St. Gregory Palamas and whose decisions were recognized by the entire Eastern Church in the fourteenth century, Alexis "undoubtedly had to subscribe to the decision of the Council" (Meyendorff 1997, 142; cf. Miklosich and Müller 1860, 1, 336–340). The following year, Alexis was ordained metropolitan by Patriarch Philotheus. Mutual interests connected Philotheus and Alexis. The emperor also supported Alexius. This was the stellar time of Gregory Palamas, the triumph of hesychasm in the Palamite version. Philotheus himself was the compiler of the "Life" and the service to St. Gregory Palamas, he supported Alexis further, with his epistles to the church hierarchs and the grand prince he confirmed his high opinion of Alexis and hinted at unpleasant consequences for those who would be "disobedient and disobedient" to the metropolitan established in Constantinople [419]. All this is explained by the Palamite interests of Alexis (or rather, it even assumes them), by the undoubted knowledge of the teachings of Gregory Palamas. Constantinople, the Constantinople meetings, Philotheus and John Kantakouzenos – this is the circle in which Alexis' Palamism was formed as an individual filiation of hesychasm, although, of course, even before his arrival in Constantinople, Alexius had probably already advanced a lot in this direction.

Alexis held Sergius in high esteem, loved him, collaborated with him and tried to draw the attention of the patriarch to him. Behind the letter which Patriarch Philotheus sent to Sergius, when his fame outside a certain circle in North-Eastern Russia was apparently still small and accidental, and the Patriarch could learn about the Russian ascetic (and then believe what he learned and properly evaluate Sergius) precisely from the stories of Alexis, stands Alexis. Philotheus' subsequent epistles to Alexis further confirm the role of the Metropolitan of Moscow as the main source of information necessary for the Patriarch about the situation of the Church in Russia and about ascetics in Christian labor.

Considering that meetings between Alexis and Sergius were frequent, and that constant communication was maintained, it is not difficult and not without good reason to assume that their conversations were not only business, that Alexis was interested not only in the situation in the Sergius Trinity. Probably, these were useful and pleasant conversations for both on a wide range of issues, and it is unlikely that Alexis did not share with his interlocutor the content of the epistles of Patriarch Philotheus: Byzantium, its ecclesiastical and monastic affairs, and new trends in religious life attracted interested and often even excessively greedy attention in Russia. It was here that the figure of Gregory Palamas himself and his hesychastic theology were to come into the sphere of Sergius' attention, and once they got here, they could not but cause a discussion of how to relate to these religious phenomena, to the theological ideas that were on the agenda. It was at this crossroads that the learned new met its own, Sergiev, and this meeting required comprehension. In this perspective, all doubts about Sergius' acquaintance with the teaching of Palamas and with his teaching should be dispelled. Therefore, there are serious grounds to assert that Palamism as a certain set of theological ideas that determine (at least partially) the essence of the theology of Gregory Palamas, or, at least, as a knowledge of his name and a general idea of his teaching, should be dated to the middle of the fourteenth century. At the same time, it is worth emphasizing two important circumstances: first, it is quite plausible that the acquaintance with hesychasm in its "pre-Palamite" version took place before the middle of the fourteenth century, but it hardly went beyond a narrow circle and it hardly went beyond the ascetic practice of monastics (in any case, the names of those who practiced hesychia in Byzantium were known in Russia before the specified period); secondly, although there is a sufficient degree of probability of acquaintance with Palamism in Russia since the middle of the fourteenth century, we still have at our disposal no texts that would document this acquaintance, which, however, is also explained by the fact that among the Russian "Palamites" there were mainly people who practiced silence and did not touch the pen [420]. From the very beginning, the researcher of Palamism in Ancient Russia has to reckon with the fact that the teaching of Gregory Palamas and, more broadly, hesychasm was in fact most fully and profoundly reflected (and could not be otherwise) not in the word, but in spiritual deed, in the new features of Russian monastic asceticism, in the general spirit that manifested itself in Russia from the middle of the fourteenth century.

Unfortunately, the problem of Russian Palamism and, more broadly, of hesychasm, its roots and early period, has not been practically investigated (of course, there are serious reasons that have prevented the study of this question), although something in this area could have been done or at least outlined.