Martin Jugie and the invention of Palamism

Abstract

Jugie’s seminal articles on Palamas and the Palamite controversy defined ‘Palamism’ as an innovation that proved the fallibility of the ‘Graeco-Roman’ Church. At the Paris Institute of Saint Sergius, Sergius Bulgakov claimed that his sophiology was a creative reworking of Palamas, while Georges Florovsky saw Palamas as the crowning Father of the neopatristic synthesis. But the pioneering work on Palamas was done by Basil Krivoshein, then a monk on Mount Athos, and the Romanian professor, Dumitru Stǎniloae, who was the first to exploit the rich holding of manuscript sources at the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris. The first work by the Paris Russians was undertaken by Vladimir Lossky and Kiprian Kern. The contacts both of them had with sympathetic Catholics were important. Lossky was given a platform by Jesuits leading the ressourcement movement; Kern’s work was published in French by the Benedictines of Chevetogne.