HESYCHASTIC SYNERGISM AND THE SEPARATION OF THE WEST AND THE EAST

Abstract

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.