Hesychastic synergism and the separation of the West and the East

author: Andrii Bobryk

Urgency of the research. Hesychastic synergism opens up the prospects of scientific and theological searches for a new form of Christianity, finding a balance and interaction between the hierarchy and the believing people, between the Church, society and politics, and the possibility of a constructive dialogue between the West and the East. Prayer is the quintessence of Christianity. The fundamental category of Hesychasm’s theology is the term “energy”, which has a different reception both in the East and in the West, which has led to a division not only in ascetic practice, but also in the dogmatic doctrine of the Trinity.

 Target setting. The study of the genesis and development of the philosophical category “energy” and the ways of its assimilation by Christian theology reveals the entire depth of understanding of dogmatic and practical disagreements between the Western and Eastern Churches. Objective conclusions from investigations of this topic can serve new theological reflections in the field of ontology, epistemology and anthropology of Christianity.

Actual scientific researches and issues analysis. The theoretical basis of this intelligence was the research of David Bradshaw, priest Vitaly Ignatiev, Hennadiy Hristokin, Sidorina Yevgenia, Mykhailo Reutyn, Lyudmila Usikova, Tatiana Gavrilyuk, etc.

The research objective. The purpose of the article: the study of the concept of “energy” and its transformation and reception in the East and the West. The task: to find out the meaning of hesychastic prayer practice and to prove the possibility of communion with God for a whole person.

The statement of basic materials. In the article, the author makes a theological and philosophical analysis of the term “energy” as a fundamental category of the theology of Hesychasm, which, in various transformations and receptions, became a determining factor in the formation of two parallel religious-philosophical paradigms: Eastern Christian and Western Christian. It is argued that the West followed the path of Neoplatonism, identifying God himself with being “ésse” and actions with creative results, which led to a certain distance between God and creation, and involvement was perceived through the causality of being. Eastern Christianity took a conceptual language from Neoplatonism and created its own religious-philosophical patristic tradition, in which the existence of God is distinguished between inner and outer, where the inner is unchanging, and the outer is a manifestation and reflection of the inner and which is complicit with creation.

Conclusions. Hesychasm is a theology of synergism or experience, where the term «energy» expresses that which eternally accompanies the essence of God. The divine attributes: goodness, life, immortality, immutability, limitlessness, and beginninglessness are not things that God arbitrarily establishes, but special modalities of the divine act of self-manifestation. The West does not recognize in God anything other than the divine essence, and for the East God in addition to nature is an eternal uncreated Glory.

Keywords: hesychasm, “energeia” (energy), “esse” (being), synergism, palamism, neopalamism, neoplatonism, essentialism, personalism, non-classical paradigm

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