Salvation as deification in the work of Saint Gregory Palamas

This article by Stavros Yangazoglou offers a systematic study of the soteriology of Saint Gregory Palamas, a fourteenth-century Byzantine theologian and defender of hesychasm. Drawing on the homilies and doctrinal writings of the holy Archbishop of Thessalonica, the author analyzes the anthropological, soteriological, and theological foundations of the Incarnation in his thought. The central idea is that salvation cannot be reduced to the redemption of Adamic sin: it constitutes the fulfillment of a pre-eternal divine plan aimed at the union of the created and the uncreated. The Incarnation of the Word, motivated by divine love and justice, makes possible the deification of humanity, which extends into the sacramental and ascetic life of the Church. The contribution of the article is to show that Palamite theology transcends the Western scholastic schema of "Fall-Redemption" by situating soteriology within a broader Christology oriented toward the Kingdom of God.