International congress of byzantine studies belgrade, 22 27 august 2016

Tikhon Pino
Marquette University, Milwaukee WI, United States; 
[e-mail]
Late Medieval Spiritualities: Gregory Palamas and Francis of Assisi
The Life of St. Gregory Palamas by Philotheos Kokkinos is a monumental work which played 
a critical role in the propagation of Gregory’s memory and theological legacy in the late Byzantine 
period. As one of the defining figures of late Palaiologan theology, Palamas’ biography, as interpreted 
by his most influential disciple, embodies the very doctrines and spirituality defended by St. Gregory 
in his own lifetime. To the extent that hagiography is a theological, and not merely historical genre, 
the vita of St. Gregory Palamas thus constitutes an important articulation, in a unique format, of the 
principles endorsed by the Palamite synods held between 1341 and 1368.
As a representative text, Gregory’s vita serves as a useful point of comparison with alternative 
spiritualities similarly contained in hagiographical accounts. Less than a century before Palamas, 

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Bonaventure of Bagnoreggio had composed the authoritative Life of Francis of Assisi, which served 
as the official biography for the Franciscan Order of the community’s founder. Like Kokkinos, 
Bonaventure was not only a biographer, but a theologian, and as a Scholastic Master is one of the 
premier representatives of the theology of his era.
While it has become something of a commonplace to compare and contrast Eastern and 
Western spirituality, and while such exercises often center precisely on the figure of Francis as a 
model of medieval Latin piety, examinations of Western asceticism and devotion have rarely looked 
to the Legenda Sancti Franscisci as a definitive source of Franciscan spirituality. Likewise, Byzantine 
spirituality has often been approached through the lens of explicitly ascetical texts or treatments of 
mysticism and divine contemplation. But as self-conscious, paradigmatic examples of late medieval 
sanctity, the Vitae of Francis and Palamas deserve attention as landmarks of Greek and Latin 
spirituality respectively.
This paper examines Kokkinos’s Life of St. Gregory Palamas and Bonaventure’s Legenda Sancti 
Francisci as authoritative expressions of two distinct spiritual systems in an attempt to explicate 
the theology of their authors. The relationship and deeper compatibility between Palamite and 
Franciscan thought is explored through an analysis of sources and an elucidation of underlying 
theological principles. This allows for a comparison of Eastern and Western spiritualities that is 
more deeply rooted in concrete sources and thus results in a richer, and less stereotyped articulation 
of the relationship between two important but very diverse cultures.