Editing Hesychasm (section)

== External views of hesychasm ==
=== Oriental Orthodox ===

==== Coptic Orthodox ====
Some [[Coptic Orthodox]] clerics are "wary of the hesychastic practices of the Jesus Prayer that developed later in the Eastern churches".<ref name="Dawood2013">{{cite web |last1=Dawood |first1=Bishoy |title=Stand, Bow, Prostrate: The Prayerful Body of Coptic Christianity : Clarion Review |url=https://www.clarionreview.org/2013/12/stand-bow-prostrate-the-prayerful-body-of-coptic-christianity |publisher=Clarion Review |access-date=27 July 2020 |language=en |date=8 December 2013 |archive-date=13 August 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230813184606/https://www.clarionreview.org/2013/12/stand-bow-prostrate-the-prayerful-body-of-coptic-christianity/ |url-status=dead }}</ref>

[[Matta El Meskeen|Matta el-Meskeen]], a Coptic Orthodox [[hieromonk]], commented that hesychasm rid the concept of unceasing prayer from its simplicity, shifting "its ascetical position as a humbling practice by itself to a mystical position, with programs, stipulations, technical and mechanical bases, degrees, objectives, results".<ref name="Dawood2013" />

In 2016 Metropolitan Bishoy of Damietta, the head of the theology department in the institute of Coptic studies and secretary of the Coptic Orthodox Church Synod from 1985 until 2012 criticized the essence-energy distinction and rejected Palamism.{{Citation needed|reason=your explanation here|date=November 2024}}

=== Roman Catholic ===
Western theologians have tended to reject the idea that the distinction between essence and energies is real rather than, albeit with a foundation in reality, notional (in the mind). In their view, affirming an ontological essence–energies distinction in God contradicted the teaching of the [[First Council of Nicaea]]<ref name="Pelikan">{{cite book |url = https://books.google.com/books?id=8jcjtUbwptwC&q=Palamas+Meyendorff+Nicene+doctrine&pg=PR11 |title = John Meyendorff (editor),''Gregory Palamas –The Triads''|page=xi |access-date=2014-02-06 |isbn=9780809124473 |last1 =Palamas |first1=Saint Gregory |last2 = Palamas |first2=Gregorius  |year=1983 |publisher = Paulist Press }}</ref> on [[monotheism|divine unity]].{{refn|group=note|In the ''[[Catholic Encyclopedia]]'' of 1909, Simon Vailhé rejected Palamas's teachings that humans could achieve a corporal perception of the divinity, and his distinction between God's essence and his energies, as "monstrous errors" and "perilous theological theories". He further characterized the Eastern canonization of Palamas's teachings as a "resurrection of polytheism". Vailhe: "Palamas taught that by asceticism one could attain a corporal, i.e. a sense view, or perception, of the Divinity. He also held that in God there was a real distinction between the Divine Essence and Its attributes, and he identified grace as one of the Divine propria making it something uncreated and infinite. These monstrous errors were denounced by the Calabrian Barlaam, by Nicephorus Gregoras, and by Acthyndinus. The conflict began in 1338 and ended only in 1368, with the solemn canonization of Palamas and the official recognition of his heresies. He was declared the 'holy doctor' and 'one of the greatest among the Fathers of the Church', and his writings were proclaimed 'the infallible guide of the Christian Faith'. Thirty years of incessant controversy and discordant councils ended with a resurrection of polytheism".<ref>[http://oce.catholic.com/index.php?title=Greek_Church Simon Vailhé, "Greek Church"] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110725233031/http://oce.catholic.com/index.php?title=Greek_Church |date=2011-07-25 }} in ''Catholic Encyclopedia''. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1909)]</ref>}} [[Adrian Fortescue]], writing in the ''[[Catholic Encyclopedia]]'' (1909), claimed that "the real distinction between God's essence and operation remains one more principle, though it is rarely insisted on now, in which the Orthodox differ from Catholics".<ref name="Fortescue" /> According to Fortescue, the Scholastic theory that God is pure actuality prevented Palamism from having much influence in the West, and it was from Western Scholasticism that hesychasm's philosophical opponents in the East borrowed their weapons.<ref name="Fortescue">{{cite web|url=http://oce.catholic.com/index.php?title=Hesychasm |title=Adrian Fortescue, "Hesychasm" in ''Catholic Encyclopedia'', vol. VII (Robert Appleton Company, New York, 1910) |publisher=Oce.catholic.com |date=2013-08-12 |access-date=2014-02-06 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131224103633/http://oce.catholic.com/index.php?title=Hesychasm |archive-date=2013-12-24 }}</ref>

In some instances, these theologians equated hesychasm with [[Quietism (Christian philosophy)|quietism]], an 18th-century mystical revival condemned by the [[Roman Catholic Church]], perhaps because "quietism" is the literal translation of "hesychasm". However, according to Eastern Orthodox bishop and theologian [[Kallistos Ware]], "To translate 'hesychasm' as 'quietism,' while perhaps etymologically defensible, is historically and theologically misleading." Ware asserts that "the distinctive tenets of the 17th-century Western quietists is not characteristic of Greek hesychasm".<ref>{{cite book |title=The Westminster Dictionary of Christian Spirituality |first=Gordon S. |last=Wakefield |publisher=Westminster John Knox Press |year=1983 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Ga815P6vxygC&q=hesychasm+quietism&pg=PA190 |isbn=978-0-664-22170-6}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |title=The inner kingdom |first=Kallistos |last=Ware |publisher=St Vladimir's Seminary Press |year=2000 |page=102 |url = https://books.google.com/books?id=g8qaOmtq6xoC&q=hesychasm+quietism&pg=PA102 |isbn=978-0-88141-209-3}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |title=Paths to the heart: Sufism and the Christian East |first=James S. |last=Cutsinger |publisher=World Wisdom, Inc. |year=2002 |page=261 |url = https://books.google.com/books?id=6wcEQdkvt3EC&q=hesychasm+quietism&pg=PA261 |isbn=978-0-941532-43-3 }}</ref>

The Roman Catholic Church has never expressed any condemnation of Palamism, and uses in its [[liturgical]] readings from the work of [[Nicholas Kabasilas]], a supporter of Palamas in the controversy that took place in the East. Its [[Liturgy of the Hours]] includes extracts from Kabasilas's ''Life in Christ'' on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday of the Fifth Week of Easter in Year II of the two-year cycle for the [[Office of Readings]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.mercaba.org/HORAS%20BIENAL/TIEMPOS/Par/PAS_PAR_05.htm|title=DOMINGO V DE PASCUA}}</ref>

The later 20th century saw a remarkable change in the attitude of Roman Catholic theologians to Palamas, a "rehabilitation" of him that has led to increasing parts of the Western Church considering him a saint, even if uncanonized.<ref name="Pelikan" /><ref>{{cite book |title=Gregory Palamas |author=Saint Gregory Palamas |publisher=Paulist Press |year=1983 |page=xi |url = https://books.google.com/books?id=8jcjtUbwptwC&q=Palamas+Meyendorff+Nicene+doctrine&pg=PR11 |isbn=978-0-8091-2447-3 }}</ref><ref>{{cite book |url = https://books.google.com/books?id=1UZCTtEuGcMC&q=hesychasm+catholic&pg=PA215 |title = Andreas Andreopoulos,''Metamorphosis: The Transfiguration in Byzantine Theology and Iconography'' (St Vladimir's Seminary Press 2005, ISBN 0-88141-295-3), pp. 215–216 |access-date=2014-02-06 |isbn=9780881412956 |last = Andreopoulos |first = Andreas |year=2005 |publisher = St Vladimir's Seminary Press }}</ref> Some Western scholars have argued that there is no conflict between Palamas's teaching and Catholic thought.<ref>"Several Western scholars contend that the teaching of St. Gregory Palamas himself is compatible with Roman Catholic thought on the matter" ([https://books.google.com/books?id=DgtUoMqm594C&dq=%22Several+Western+scholars+contend%22&pg=PA243 Michael J. Christensen, Jeffery A. Wittung (editors), ''Partakers of the Divine Nature'' (Associated University Presses 2007] {{ISBN|0-8386-4111-3}}), p. 243).</ref> According to Kallistos Ware, some Western theologians, both Roman Catholic and Anglican, see the theology of Palamas as introducing an inadmissible division within God; however, others have incorporated his theology into their own thinking.<ref name="books.google">[https://books.google.com/books?id=ognCKztR8a4C&dq=hesychasm+catholic&pg=PA186 Kallistos Ware in ''Oxford Companion to Christian Thought''] (Oxford University Press 2000 {{ISBN|0-19-860024-0}}), p.&nbsp;186.</ref>{{refn|group=note|For example, G. Philips asserts that the essence-energies distinction as presented by Palamas is "a typical example of a perfectly admissible theological pluralism" that is compatible with the Roman Catholic magisterium.<ref>{{cite book |url = https://books.google.com/books?id=DgtUoMqm594C&q=admissible+pluralism&pg=PA243 |title = Michael J. Christensen, Jeffery A. Wittung (editors), ''Partakers of the Divine Nature'' (Associated University Presses 2007 ISBN 0-8386-4111-3), p. 243 |access-date=2014-02-06|isbn=9780838641118 |last1=Christensen |first1=Michael J. |last2=Wittung |first2=Jeffery A. |year=2007 |publisher = Fairleigh Dickinson Univ Press }}</ref> [[Pope John Paul II]] repeatedly emphasized his respect for Eastern theology as an enrichment for the whole Church, declaring that, even after the painful division between the Christian East and the [[Holy See|See of Rome]], that theology has opened up profound thought-provoking perspectives of interest to the entire Catholic Church. He spoke in particular of the [[hesychast controversy]]. The term "hesychasm", he said, refers to a practice of prayer marked by deep tranquillity of the spirit intent on contemplating God unceasingly by invoking the name of Jesus. While from a Catholic viewpoint there have been tensions concerning some developments of the practice, the pope said, there is no denying the goodness of the intention that inspired its defence, which was to stress that man is offered the concrete possibility of uniting himself in his inner heart with God in that profound union of grace known as ''theosis'', divinization.<ref>{{cite web |url = http://rumkatkilise.org/byzpope.htm |title = Pope John Paul II and the East Pope John Paul II. "Eastern Theology Has Enriched the Whole Church" (11 August 1996). English translation |website = Rumkatkilise.org |access-date=2014-02-06 |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20160412063915/http://rumkatkilise.org/byzpope.htm |archive-date=12 April 2016 |url-status=dead }}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url = https://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/angelus/1996/documents/hf_jp-ii_ang_19960811_it.html |title = Original text (in Italian) |website = Vatican.va |access-date=2014-02-06 }}</ref><ref>{{cite web |last=Pope John Paul II |author-link=Pope John Paul II |date=11 August 1996 |title=Eastern Theology Has Enriched the Whole Church |url=http://www.catholicculture.org/library/view.cfm?recnum=5660 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070926231104/http://www.catholicculture.org/library/view.cfm?recnum=5660 |archive-date=26 September 2007 |access-date=8 May 2022 |website=CatholicCulture.org}}</ref>}}