Akindynos, during his controversy with Gregory Palamas, invoked and made extensive use of patristic teaching to counter the palamite theological conceptions, while also strengthening his own perception.
He argued that his own theological beliefs are in fact aligned with the piety of the "wise" and "God-enlightened" Church Fathers, which was handed down to us as the right teaching and correct faith of the Church.
Considering that he did not innovate, as far as the doctrine of the one deity is concerned, he objected Palamas, perceiving his theology as totally incompatible with the patristic tradition. He believed that Palamas, aiming to safeguard his theological perception, adopted a misleading approach towards the Fathers and interpreted them completely wrong. Thus, he was talking about novel, unusual and false theology. Consequently, Akindynos described Palamas as "a new theologian", "an overthrower of piety’s terms" and a "contamination of the Church".
However, Akindynos’ claims about faithfulness in the patristic tradition are of no substance. The truth is that it stands critically against the Fathers of the Church and uses them completely subjectively. He adopts their theology, to a certain extent and only if it agrees with what he recognizes, perceives and accepts in advance as faith and teaching of the Church. Otherwise, when the writings of the Fathers do not seem to support his perceptions, he interferes and changes them in such a way that they advocate his theology; altering their meaning or reading them out of context, or quoting them fragmentarily and partially
Gregory Palamas has faced a problem of compatibility of two theological provisions within his doctrine based on distinction in God of substance and non-created activities: these are, firstly, that God is unalterable, and, secondly, that He acts accordingly with the time in relation to the created world, in particular, having made the created being. This background caused polemical argumentations on possibility of signifying the divine activities as accident. The notion of accident here refers to the context ascending to Peripatetic tradition, yet modified in writings of such Christian authors as Augustine, Cyril of Alexandria and John Damascene. Palamas addresses this topic in two of his works, Antirrh. c. Acind and Capita 150, written within the interval of five or six years. We see that Palamas is moving towards a more detailed notion of accidental while considering its applicability to divine activities: this is the moving to the notion of inseparable accident. But even in this sense, the accident, compliant to Palamas, must not be attributed to God and divine activities, though the Church tradition used to do this. Palamas finds a solution of this tension by pointing out that the notion of accident was used by the Church tradition in an improper sense. Meanwhile, his ally David Dishypatus takes a more subtle position: he admits a possibility to apply the notion of accident to the divine activities, but minding core restrictions of the human language, which speaks of God only within the horizon of human nature.
Fourteenth century, can be characterized as the century that Church was in need in interpreting more accurate and with soteriological perspective the Christological dogma that formulated in previous ecumenical councils (3rd-6th). The questions concerning the natures of Christ and the manner of manifestation in terms of energy were susceptible to various interpretations that were dominated either by philosophical premises or by soteriological criteria.
One of those questions concerning the hypostasis of the Logos in Transfiguration and the nature of the Devine light "raised" in the Hesychastical controversy. The outstanding Patristic figure of that century was Maximus the Confessor, because his Christological works were the basis in which St. Gregory Palamas constructed his argumentation when was entangled in disputes with scholars and theologians of his time. A successor of Palamite theology at the third part of the controversies (1347-1368) was Theophanes of Niceae (+1381) who tried to interpret the mystery of the divine Economy using the previous patristic tradition.
Through this paper we will try to underline the use of patristic sources in the Orations of the Divine light, written by Theophanes. Especially we intent to present the Maximian interpretation of the term "hypostasis", in which Theophanes builds his argumentation. Within this framework we will attempt to approach the methodology and the hermeuneutical criteria by means of which he attempts to recover the true meaning that is hidden within this Tradition and to demonstrate the misinterpretation that is put forward by those who deviate from the faith of the Church.
The rise of the Hesychasm’s studies, starting from 1920s by Dumitru Stăniloae and Basil Krivocheine, ushered a re-discovery of Gregory Palamàs’s thinking. Vladimir Lossky in the 1950s, with help from other Orthodox theologians, primarily John Meyendorff. Current interest in the Hesychast’s controversy is indicated by the number of studies which have been published in the last fifty years, however there is a short important document, that can be credited to the circle of secondary literature, though it was never considered enough. The author was a monk Dishypato. Dishypato belonged to the Palaeologan Dynasty, worked in close contact with Gregory Palamas. In the 1347, Empress Anne of Savoy requested David to wrote account of the second period of controversy (1341-51) between Palamas and Barlaam of Calabria. The text, so called «Historia brevis», was remarkable for the fact that summarized in a clear few words the inconsistency of the Barlaam and Akindynos’s doctrine, giving a considerable endorsement for the palamite’s theology. Specifically, this issue will try to overhaul two editions of Τοῦ τιμιωτάτου καὶ σοφωτάτου μοναχοῦ κυροῦ Δαυὶδ ἱστορία διὰ βραχέων ὅπως τὴν ἀρχὴν συνέστη ἡ κατὰ τὸν Βαρλαὰμ καὶ Ἀκίνδυνον πονηρὰ αἵρεσις edited by Uspenskij in 1892 and the Candal’s version (1949). This project considers the variegated compound of the epistle within own specific contexts up to obtain, as much as possible, an homogenous text. This draft of the text will represents the effort to deepen our understanding of the last dispute’s phase.