The Church commemorates Saint Philip the Apostle, Saint Gregory Palamas, Archbishop of Thessaloniki, Saint Euphemianos of Cyprus, and New Martyr Constantine of Hydra, Patron Saint of the city of Rhodes.
Saint Gregory Palamas was born in Constantinople. He was born in 1296 to virtuous parents. His father was a courtier and then became a monk. He had many innate talents. Endowed with intelligence and fine abilities, he developed his personality and the gift of knowledge.
Although he was asked to devote himself to government service, Saint Gregory Palamas pursued a monastic life. He distributed, according to the Gospel, his possessions to the poor, and, renouncing the worldly vanities, began on the path of asceticism.
He went to Mount Athos, where he practiced all sorts of virtues.
He lived in the Great Lavra and then he went to Thessaloniki, where he was ordained a deacon and a presbyter and then a bishop. As Archbishop of Thessaloniki, he devoted himself to supporting the flock of the Church, both with his virtuous life and with his theological writing.
He encountered the Italo-Greek Barlaam and the monk Gregory Akindynos, who identified the essence with the energies of God.
At that time, Saint Gregory Palamas, expressing and extending the theology of Saint Basil the Great, indicated that one can know God, not by intellect or emotion, but by the experience of the Holy Spirit. The Christian can experience the light and glory of the Holy Trinity through the uncreated divine energies because the divine essence remains infinite and inaccessible to the finite human being.
Source: Church of Cyprus
