John Meyendorff’s response to Jugie

Abstract Meyendorff was the first to attempt an account of Palamas and Palamite theology based on a thorough investigation of the sources, both edited and unedited. On its publication in 1959, his Introduction was widely acclaimed. Two Western scholars who welcomed it warmly were Eric Mascall and Louis Bouyer, but a reaction set in the 1970s. This chapter follows the debate initiated by the Dominican journal Istina and continued in the pages of St Vladimir’s Theological Quarterly and the Eastern Churches Review, and shows how behind it lay the Roman Catholic struggle between conservatives and progressives after the Second Vatican Council. The chapter concludes with a discussion of how Meyendorff abandoned the much-criticized dichotomies of his Introduction but did not alter his fundamental perspective.