Gregory Akindynos ( Latinized as Gregorius Acindynus) () (ca. 1300 – 1348) was a

Byzantine The Byzantine Empire, also known as the Eastern Roman Empire, was the continuation of the Roman Empire centred on Constantinople during late antiquity and the Middle Ages. Having survived the events that caused the fall of the Western Roman E ...

theologian of Bulgarian origin.Ihor Ševčenko, Society and Intellectual Life in Late Byzantium, Vol. 137 of Collected Studies, Variorum Reprint, 1981, , p 74. A native of

Prilep Prilep ( ) is the List of cities in North Macedonia, fourth-largest city in North Macedonia. According to 2021 census, it had a population of 63,308. Name The name of Prilep appeared first as ''Πρίλαπος'' in Greek (''Prilapos'') in 1 ...

, he moved from

Pelagonia Pelagonia (; ) is a geographical region of Macedonia named after the ancient kingdom. Ancient Pelagonia roughly corresponded to the present-day municipalities of Bitola, Prilep, Mogila, Novaci, Kruševo, and Krivogaštani in North Macedo ...

Thessaloniki Thessaloniki (; ), also known as Thessalonica (), Saloniki, Salonika, or Salonica (), is the second-largest city in Greece (with slightly over one million inhabitants in its Thessaloniki metropolitan area, metropolitan area) and the capital cit ...

and studied under Thomas Magistros and Gregory Bryennios. He became an admirer of Nikephoros Gregoras after he was shown an astronomical treatise of that scholar by his friend Balsamon in 1332, writing him a letter in which he calls him a "sea of wisdom". From Thessaloniki, he intended to move on to

Mount Athos Mount Athos (; ) is a mountain on the Athos peninsula in northeastern Greece directly on the Aegean Sea. It is an important center of Eastern Orthodoxy, Eastern Orthodox monasticism. The mountain and most of the Athos peninsula are governed ...

, but for reasons unknown, he was refused. He was involved in the theological dispute surrounding the doctrine of Uncreated Light between

Gregory Palamas Gregory Palamas (; ; – 1357/1359) was a Byzantine Greek theologian and Eastern Orthodox cleric of the late Byzantine period. A monk of Mount Athos (modern Greece) and later archbishop of Thessalonica, he is famous for his defense of hesyc ...

and Barlaam of Calabria in the 1340s. As a student of Palamas', he mediated between the two from 1337, warning Barlaam in 1340 that his attempts against his doctrine would be futile, but from 1341 he became critical of Palamas' position, denouncing it as Messalianism, and came to be Palamas' most dangerous adversary after Barlaam's return to Calabria. He was

excommunicated Excommunication is an institutional act of religious censure used to deprive, suspend, or limit membership in a religious community or to restrict certain rights within it, in particular those of being in communion with other members of the con ...

at the Council of Constantinople of 1347 and died in exile, apparently a victim of the plague of 1348.

Literature

*'' Patrologia Graeca'' vol. 151. *Angela Constantinides Hero (trans.), ''Letters of Gregory Akindynos'', Harvard Univ Press (1983), . review: Aristeides Papadakis, ''Speculum'' (1985). *J.-S. Nadal, "La critique par Akindynos de l'herméneutique patristique de Palamas," ''Istina'' 19 (1974), 297–328. *J. Nadal Cañellas, ed. ''Gregorii Acindyni refutationes duae operis Gregorii Palamae cui titulus Dialogus inter Orthodoxum et Barlaamitam'' (Louvain 1995). Corpus Christianorum Series Graeca, 31.(Greek text of Acindynus' treatises against a work by Palamas titled ''Dialogue between an Orthodox and a Barlaamite.'') *J. Nadal Cañellas, ''La résistance d' Akindynos à Grégoire Palamas. Enquête historique, avec traduction et commentaire de quatre traités édités récemment. I-II'' (Louvain 2003) Spicilegium Sacrum Lovaniense. Études et documents 50 - 51 (Gives a French translation, with important historical commentary, of the treatises edited by Nadal Cañellas in 1995.) * Juan Nadal Canellas, "Le rôle de Grégoire Akindynos dans la controverse hésychaste du XIVeme siècle à Byzance," in Juan Pedro Monferrer-Sala (ed.), ''Eastern Crossroads: Essays on Medieval Christian Legacy'' (Piscataway: Gorgias Press LLC, 2007) (Gorgias Eastern Christian Studies, 1), 31–60. (For an English translation of this, see
Gregory Akindynos’s role in the 14th-century hesychast controversy
) * Anna Tryphonos,
Ο Γρηγόριος Ακίνδυνος μέσα από τις επιστολές του
' regory Akindynos through his letters; dissertation(Athens, 2012).

Literature

References

See also