Homily of His Grace, Bishop Partenij of Antania, Abbot of the Holy Bigorski Monastery, Delivered on the Sunday of St. Gregory Palamas at the Divine Liturgy, in the chapel of St. Gregory in Rajčica, March 12, 2023, in the Year of the Lord
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit!
We give thanks to God, who by His grace and through His divine power has brought us to the second week of the Great and Holy Fast. This Sunday, like the previous one, is dedicated to yet another great victory of the Orthodox faith. Last Sunday, in the first week of Lent, as we celebrated the triumph of Holy Orthodoxy, the Church of God honored and exalted the heroes of the Orthodox confession—their struggles, sacrifices, and victories, through which they bore witness to the truth and correctness of this divinely revealed and enlightened faith.
Today, the Church presents to us the great champion of the Orthodox faith, our holy father Gregory Palamas, the Wonderworker of Thessalonica. He lived and worked in the 14th century, during a turbulent and difficult time for the Church of Christ, when the people of God and their faith were exposed to the fierce winds of trials and challenges. St. Gregory was a monk on the Holy Mountain of Athos, wholly dedicated to strenuous spiritual labor and ascetic struggles for the sake of Christ. In the most excellent way possible, he pursued the same goal that all Athonite monks strive for: union with God through the uncreated divine energies—namely, the grace of God, which operates within the holy mysteries of the Church. This union was also sought through the practice of constant prayer of the heart, whereby the monks ceaselessly invoked the name of Jesus and called upon the mercy of the Lord, bringing the mind into the heart with perfect vigilance and deep concentration.
It is important to understand that this interior spiritual life was not the exclusive calling of the monks on Mount Athos. Many Christians living in the world also aspired to union with God through grace. For example, St. Gregory Palamas’ own father, though a senator in the imperial court, immersed his mind and heart in continual prayer and contemplation of Jesus. Indeed, union with God—deification, or theosis—is not a privilege reserved only for monks, but rather the ultimate purpose of every human life. As Christians, we are all called to participate in this essential process of becoming godlike. This was God’s original design in creating man: that we might be one with Him.
Many mistakenly think that the goal of Christianity is merely to make a person morally better, as though Christianity were just a system of ethical teachings or philosophical contemplation. But that is not the case. Christianity, above all, is about theosis—the process of becoming one with God, being transformed by divine grace. The Son of God did not come into the world to establish a new moral code—there were many such codes even in ancient times. Rather, He became incarnate to unite human nature with divinity. God’s desire, beloved, is for us to become godlike.
What did St. Gregory Palamas accomplish in his time that made him so revered and celebrated within the Church? Why did the merciful and all-holy God choose him specifically to be a confessor of the truth? As Church history teaches us, the Church at that time was shaken by a dangerous heresy. This heresy taught that it was impossible for man to commune with God, let alone unite with Him, since God is absolute and far above human nature. It claimed that man could only gain a limited knowledge of God—limited to what the intellect could grasp. According to the heretics, knowledge of God could only be attained through intellectual means—through Christian scholasticism, academic reasoning, and intellectual contemplation, without the involvement of divine grace.
The proponents of this heresy had neither experienced nor understood what divine grace truly is, and they falsely claimed that the energies active in the mysteries of the Church were merely created phenomena, not part of God’s divine essence. If that were true, however, it would mean that human nature could not partake in God’s nature, and the deification of man would be impossible.
This teaching deeply troubled St. Gregory Palamas, who had personally witnessed the uncreated divine energies at work. He knew from experience how God’s grace, drawn by the sacramental and virtuous life of prayer and humility, acts upon people, blessing and sanctifying them. He saw this daily among his fellow ascetics on Mount Athos—those Christ-loving elders who ceaselessly struggled to become one with God and were indeed sanctified and deified through the uncreated energies of God. He also recognized this grace at work within himself, as its presence and activity were powerfully evident in his life, making him an instrument of divine grace and a bold preacher of the truth. Thus, the Church, in her hymns, calls St. Gregory a “light of Orthodoxy,” a “fortress of the Church,” and a “herald of grace.”
Filled with a holy zeal for truth and inspired by the Most Holy Theotokos—through whom every good gift comes—St. Gregory Palamas stood boldly like a mighty lion. With a resolute spirit, he proclaimed that Christianity is far more than philosophy, more essential than any moral system or scholastic science. He began to expound, from personal experience, the supreme truth: that the goal of Christians is to unite with God, becoming one with Him through His uncreated energies, which are an inseparable part of His divine nature and are granted to us through the Holy Spirit. By participating in these energies through a sacramental and virtuous life in the Church, we commune with God Himself, becoming children of God—gods by grace.
Speaking and writing with divine enlightenment, and drawing both from the Church’s collective experience and from his own, St. Gregory successfully opposed the aforementioned heresy, which had spread in the Balkan region through Barlaam of Calabria and his followers. This struggle for the proper understanding of God and the correct confession of faith was by no means easy. St. Gregory himself endured persecution and was expelled from his episcopal throne in Thessalonica, even suffering imprisonment for several years. However, following a series of synods in Constantinople—where intense debates took place and Palamas zealously defended the Church’s revelation and the experience of the holy hesychasts—his teachings were officially affirmed at the Fifth Council of Constantinople in 1351. His doctrine, rooted in the Church’s sacred tradition, was embraced as authentic and salvific, and he was rehabilitated and honored.
After enduring numerous attacks, trials, and tribulations, the Church finally accepted this sacred experience, articulated through the writings and preaching of Gregory, Archbishop of Thessalonica: the purpose of the Christian life is to be sanctified and united with God through His uncreated energies, which act within the holy mysteries of the Church and are drawn to us through a virtuous life in cooperation with unceasing prayer of the heart. Thus, St. Gregory Palamas clarified and defined what had existed within the Church from the very beginning. He did not introduce a new philosophy or personal invention but bore witness to the truth experienced by the holy fathers—a truth countless Christians have sought to attain through ascetic struggle. Indeed, St. Gregory became the voice that proclaimed the truth about what had always taken place in the Church’s inner life, deep within the hearts of the faithful.
Beloved brothers and sisters, the most important condition for us to attain deification (theosis) is, first and foremost, to desire it from the depths of our hearts. The essential prerequisite for our personal deification is the alignment of our will with God’s will. As the Lord taught us in the prayer, “Thy will be done,” we must begin by harmonizing our will with His. This alignment opens the way to various struggles and efforts, allowing us, step by step, to acquire divine grace. Through life in the Church, accompanied by good works and prayer, we partake in the uncreated grace-filled energies of God.
Therefore, during the Holy and Great Lent, our Mother, the Church, calls us to intensified ascetic effort and self-restraint so that the fullness of the divine grace of the Resurrection may be revealed to us. It is for this reason that, throughout the Sundays of Great Lent, the Church sets before us the champions of faith, the ascetics and preachers of Orthodoxy, showing us that the ultimate goal of our existence—theosis—is attained through labor and struggle. This is what the words of our Savior in the Gospel signify: “The Kingdom of Heaven suffers violence, and the violent take it by force” (Matthew 11:12). Without effort, without prayer, without good works, without self-discipline, and especially without participation in the holy mysteries of the Church, it is impossible to enter the Kingdom of Heaven.
We must understand, beloved, that ascetic struggle alone is not enough. Correct belief and confession of faith, accompanied by sound doctrine regarding the divinely revealed truth—confirmed by the struggles and blood of countless martyrs and confessors of our faith—are also essential. Without these, it is impossible to inherit the Kingdom of Heaven. As Christians, we are all obligated to safeguard the purity of the saving faith, first through personal purification and deification, and then through our words and confession. In the Creed, we profess “one baptism for the forgiveness of sins and for eternal life” in relation to our Holy Church. The Church is the guardian of the mysteries of our salvation, the treasury of our spiritual life. Here is where divine grace resides, and here is where we commune with God through His uncreated energies.
It is of utmost importance that we confess our faith correctly and preserve the truth. In the Creed, which we recite at every Divine Liturgy, we declare: “In one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church.” This is the definition, the very name of the Church in which all Orthodox Christians must believe. One, because the Church is unified, indivisible, and a single Body of Christ. Holy, because her Creator and source of sanctification is holy. Catholic, because the Church is a universal assembly open to all people, not restricted to any particular nation or group. Apostolic, because it was founded and confirmed by the blood of the holy Apostles.
Given this sacred understanding, is it right to assign any other name to the Church? Is it right to divide her based on any worldly criteria? Since she is one and catholic, can she also be Albanian, Bulgarian, Greek, Russian, Serbian, Macedonian, or anything else? What folly and grave sin it is to divide the one Church into nationalist factions! Sadly, many of us within the Church often confuse the divine with the earthly. We must not alter the character of the Church of God, which is one, universal, and the same everywhere. While it may be said that the Church is administratively divided for practical pastoral needs, it can never be divided along national lines, for that would be a great sin!
The heresy of ethnophyletism—the practice of organizing the Church along national or ethnic lines—has been condemned, and we must not fall into its trap, lest we lose our own salvation. Even the administrative division into local hierarchies should not imply complete independence of each jurisdiction. There remains an order, established since the time of the Apostles and later confirmed by the Ecumenical Councils, concerning how the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church should function. We have a first-among-equals Patriarch, a synod of primates, and both local and greater councils. We see the principle of conciliarity from the very beginnings of the Church, with the Apostles convening the Council of Jerusalem to discuss and decide matters affecting the early Christian community.
Therefore, beloved, let us be vigilant and not allow ourselves to be misled by worldly interests that seek to corrupt the true teaching about the nature of the Church by nationalizing and limiting the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church. Do you understand what a grave sin it is to grant exclusivity over the Church to any single nation? Or to turn the Church into a tool that serves only one particular people or state? This is a terrible thing.
Recently, I heard that in one neighboring local church, they even altered the Troparion of the Precious Cross: instead of the original words, “Save, O Lord, Your people, and bless Your inheritance,” they replaced the word “Christians” with the name of a particular nation. How dreadful! And what about the other nations within the Church? Is the Church composed of only one nation?
Someone might argue that a particular area is home to an ethnically homogeneous population (if such purity even exists) that belongs to only one nation. But what if, during a liturgy in that place, people from other nations are present? According to the logic of those promoting nationalism, such visitors would not be entitled to the Church’s prayers or blessings and might even be regarded as enemies. Do the clergy who give preference to one nation over others not fear God? Dividing the Church along national lines is profoundly wrong—it is heresy.
When we pray during the Divine Liturgy for all Orthodox brothers and sisters throughout the world, regardless of their ethnicity, this does not diminish our identity as Macedonians. During the Great Entrance at the Liturgy, do we not say: “May the Lord God remember all of us and all pious Orthodox Christians in His Kingdom”? All Orthodox Christians are one people, a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, called to declare the praises of Him who has brought us out of darkness into His marvelous light (1 Peter 2:9).
We must not infect the Church with nationalism. If we begin to place anything above Christ within the Church, we will provoke the Lord’s wrath. This is precisely why we Orthodox Christians suffer today—because of such misguided attitudes. Many bishops, priests, and theologians know the truth, but they do nothing. I wonder what kind of delusion they live in, given their failure to correctly confess our faith.
Preaching the truth benefits everyone, ensuring that we all receive God’s blessing. And when, outside the Church, I strive to love my neighbor and help all those around me, I am truly helping my own people. I will be a good Macedonian, a true patriot, only if I live as a genuine Christian, serving my neighbors through deeds. Indeed, the Church belongs to a people only to the extent that they live according to her holy mysteries. It is in this way that the Church gives that people both true existence and endurance, even in a worldly sense.
Let us, therefore, pray to our holy father Gregory Palamas, the Wonderworker of Thessalonica, who has great boldness before our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. May he intercede for us so that we may complete the journey of this Lenten season as we should—struggling with right belief and love for God and neighbor—and may we all, healthy and whole, together joyfully reach the radiant feast of Holy Pascha.
Amen!
