St. Gregory Palamas (1296-1359)

Athonite monk, then Archbishop of Thessalonica, and the theologian of the uncreated light. When Barlaam the Calabrian mocked the hesychasts and denied that anyone could see the light of Tabor, Gregory answered in the Triads: God is unknowable in His essence and truly given in His energies, which are God and not a creature, so the saints who see that light see God. Councils at Constantinople in 1341, 1347 and 1351 upheld him, and the Synodikon of Orthodoxy has read his teaching out every year since. He spent a year as a captive of the Turks, and his letters from captivity are gentle about his captors. The Church keeps him twice: on the day of his repose, and on the Second Sunday of Great Lent, where his victory is set beside the victory of the icons. Feast: November 14.