Akindynos, Gregorios

Abstract

Gregorios Akindynos was a Byzantine theologian of the fourteenth century (ca. 1300–1348), learned in patristic literature and Greek philosophy, and leader of the anti-Palamite party in the second phase of Hesychast Controversy (1341–1347). Based on his interpretation of the Greek patristic tradition, he wrote extensive refutations of Gregorios Palamas’ works and especially of the Hesychast theological justification of the essence-energies distinction within God. For Akindynos simplicity is a major attribute of the tripartite God, and everything separated from God’s essence is created; so there can be no distinction between incomprehensible uncreated divine essence and comprehensible and inferior uncreated divine energies. Any such theory subverts the unity of the Trinity and leads to ditheism, for which he accused Palamas. Divine names do not correspond to energies but just denote divine nature. Regarding man’s participation in God as a means for deification, Akindynos refuses Hesychast’s claim that man is capable of participating in divine energies and even seeing them in a spiritual manner. The divine light which humans experience is a symbol and, together with the created world and reason, a way to the knowledge of God. Given this kind of knowledge, it is only in divine love that the inexplicable union of man and God occurs and deification is possible. Akindynos influenced anti-Palamite writers, and his works have been severely criticized by Hesychast theologians.