In the preceding chapters we have tried to set forth in a systematic manner, confirming our conclusions with appropriate quotations, the basic ascetic and theological convictions of St. Gregory Palamas. In conclusion, we would like to say a few more words about the significance of his teaching in the general course of the development of theological thought in the Orthodox East. It seems to us very important for a correct understanding of him to clarify the question to what extent St. Gregory Palamas can be regarded as a traditional church theologian, to which currents of ascetic and theological thought of the Orthodox Church he belongs, and what new things he has introduced into the treasury of her ecclesiastical theology. Unfortunately, in this matter, the polemical or, on the contrary, apologetic approach to the subject has hitherto greatly hampered its objective study. In accordance with their confessional views, some sought to prove the complete tradition of St. Gregory Palamas, while others, on the contrary, saw in him an innovator who abruptly broke with all previous church theological tradition and "invented" a completely "unheard-of" theological system. It is unlikely, however, that both of these opinions, which, as it seems to us, can be scientifically substantiated on facts. And first of all, the opinion that the teaching of St. Gregory Palamas was completely unrelated to the ascetic and theological traditions that preceded it and that it arose for purely accidental reasons (out of the need to find arguments to repel Barlaam's attacks on the monks) seems to us to be especially wrong historically. Apart from the fact that we almost never encounter such examples of "creativity" in the history of human thought, the possibility of such "pure innovation" is especially improbable in the field of Byzantine theology, which has always been extremely conservative, traditional, and turned to the past. To limit the connection of St. Gregory Palamas with the past to his mysticism alone, denying it to his dogmatics, seems to us erroneous in view of the undoubted close and indissoluble connection and interdependence of the dogmatic and ascetic teaching of the Orthodox Church (in the concepts of God, the world, man, soul and body, good and evil, the Fall and redemption, etc.). In general, this connection is so close and indissoluble that any attempt to artificially isolate the ascetic and dogmatic elements of patristic teaching cannot be carried out without violence to their content. In particular, this is especially true of St. Gregory Palamas, whose organic character of his worldview, where everything is so interconnected internally, makes such a division especially erroneous. But apart from all this, the mere fact that St. Gregory Palamas and his followers so willingly resorted in their polemics to the testimonies of the ancient patristic and ascetic ecclesiastical writings, where they easily found numerous confirmations of their teaching, while their opponents, with all their desire to appear traditionalists, were forced to use mainly arguments of an abstract nature, This fact alone testifies to the fact that St. Gregory Palamas felt himself to be in the mainstream of the ancient church tradition and, undoubtedly, was in it. In fact, his ascetic teaching in its essence is nothing other than the ancient teaching on the paths of contemplative solitary life, dating back to Evagrius of Pontus and St. Macarius of Egypt, known in the history of Orthodox monasticism under the name of silence, or hesychasm. In particular, the teaching of St. Gregory Palamas on mental prayer, its methods and on the higher spiritual states is very close to the teaching of St. John of the Ladder, Hesychius and Philotheus of Sinai, St. Symeon the New Theologian, and St. Gregory the Sinaite. As we have seen above, the beginnings of the teaching about the uncreated Divine Light are found already in the writings of St. Macarius of Egypt, Bl. Theodoret, and especially in St. Symeon the New Theologian. The Light of Tabor as a manifestation of the Divinity was taught by St. Gregory the Theologian, and in the works of St. Gregory of Crete and St. John of Damascus there is contained, in the main, the entire teaching of St. Gregory Palamas about the uncreated Light of the Lord's Transfiguration. In the teaching on grace, St. Macarius of Egypt is closest to him. Finally, the doctrine of the "essence and energy of the Godhead" goes back in its basic propositions and even terminology to St. Basil the Great, St. Gregory of Nyssa, and St. John of Damascus. An even greater inner resemblance to this teaching, with some differences in the mode of expression, is found in the works of Dionysius the Areopagite, where he writes symbolically about the "appearance of God," about His sleep and wakefulness, and about abiding in His incomprehensible "secret superessence." In spite of the undoubted traditionalism of all the basic ascetic and theological views of St. Gregory Palamas, however, we cannot regard him as merely repeating what had already been said before him, or as a compiler devoid of any originality. He was not a compiler because the starting point of his theology was his personal spiritual experience, and not a simple study of the books of the Holy Fathers. His teaching is not a collection of various elements outwardly connected with each other, but forms a kind of harmonious whole, imbued with a single basic idea. All the traditional ascetic and theological problems were relived by him and posed anew. Much that had previously been insufficiently formulated or developed received from St. Gregory Palamas a further, more systematic development and theological-philosophical substantiation. Thus, in the field of asceticism, he developed and philosophically and theologically substantiated the traditional church teaching on the meaning of the body in spiritual life and on the methods of "artistic" mental prayer. Adhering to the ancient patristic view of man as a microcosm and of the connection between the two worlds, the visible and the invisible, St. Gregory Palamas supplemented this teaching with an indication of the mutual relationship between the human and angelic worlds, emphasizing that man, as an active being capable of creativity, is to a greater extent created in the image of God than an angel. The fragmentary mystical utterances of his predecessors about the uncreated Divine Light for the first time acquire the character of a systematic theological teaching. The doctrine of grace as the power of God was also developed by him in more detail than before him, and, most importantly, it was connected with the general teaching of the Divinity (the same can be said of the uncreated Light). The doctrine of God in His "secret superessence" and "revealed energy," although it does not belong to St. Gregory Palamas, nevertheless first received its theological and philosophical foundation in connection with the problem of Divine simplicity. And, in order to briefly summarize the significance of St. Gregory Palamas in the development of Orthodox thought, we can say that the traditional asceticistic teaching of the Orthodox East not only finds its final and systematic expression in his works, but also its theological-philosophical justification. With his teaching about the uncreated Light and Divine energies, St. Gregory Palamas provided an indestructible theological basis for the traditional mystical teaching of the Orthodox Church, for only on the basis of this teaching is it possible to consistently affirm the reality of man's communion with God and the reality of deification, without falling into the pantheistic fusion of creation with the Divine, which inevitably arises from the identification of essence and energy in God. Therefore, it would hardly be an exaggeration to compare the theology and struggles of St. Gregory Palamas with the theological feats and struggle for Orthodoxy of St. Athanasius of Alexandria. This comparison seems to us to be true because just as St. Athanasius the Great, having introduced into church usage, in spite of the protests of the pseudo-traditionalists of his time (we have in mind Eusebius of Caesarea and other semi-Arians), the theological term "homousios" (consubstantial), which had not been used before him in the Church, expressed by him the primordial (although not precisely formulated before him) church teaching on the Second Hypostasis, so St. Gregory Palamas with a bold development and theological clarification of the teaching that already existed before him about the uncreated Light and the energies of God, expressed and substantiated the truly traditional teaching of the Church about the authenticity and validity of the revelation in the created world of the uncreated Divinity, about the reality of the mystical communion of man with God and about the possibility of man's grace-filled overcoming of his created limitations without pantheistic merging and absorption of him by the Divine Being. In this matter of theological substantiation of the data of ecclesiastical mystical experience in its ultimate depths and limits lies the enduring great significance of St. Gregory Palamas. That is why the Orthodox Church so solemnly and with such love celebrates his holy memory every year, honoring in him not only a man fragrant with the holiness of his personal life, but also one of the pillars of her "divinely written" theology, a glorious preacher of the "piety of the great mystery."