HESTCHASTS (Gr. Horychazo, to be quiet), a mystic and contemplative sect of the Greek church, who renewed in the 14th c. the errors and practices of the older Euebites, and who may be described as the Quietists of the east. There is reason to believe that the principles of the ancient mystics never entirely died out among the oriental mon astic bodies; but they attracted an unusual share of public attention not only at home, but in the western church in the earlier half of the 14th century. A Basilian monk. named Barlaam, a native of Calabria, the ancient Magna Grrecia, and himself of Greek origin, in the course of a visit to the monasteries of Greece, observed among the monks several practices and doctrines which he considered grievously reprehensible; and was particularly struck by the doctrinal abuses of the monks of Mt. Athos, the " holy mountain," the great stronghold of monasticism in Greece. In common with the mys tics of all times, these monks placed all perfection in contemplation, and in the eleva tion and abstraction of soul which contemplation produces. But among many practises which lie considered objectionable, there was one which especially provoked his repro bation, and, indeed, his ridicule. Believing that in the soul lay bidden a certain divine light., which it was the office of contemplation to evoke, they withdrew at stated times to a retired place, seated themselves on the earth, and fixed their eyes steadfastly on the center of the stomach (whence the sobriquet by which they were known, omphatopy choi, navel-souls); and they averred that, after the allotted time of contemplation, a kind of heavenly light beamed forth upon them from the soul (whose sent, they held, was in that region), and filled them with ecstasy and supernatural delight. They declared that
this light was the glory of God himself, and they connected it in some unexplained way with the light which appeared at the transfiguration of our Lord upon Tabor. Bari:tam lenounced these notions as fanatical and superstitious. On the other hand they were explained and warmly defended by Gregory Palamas, the archbishop of Thessaloniea: and in order to settle the controversy, a council was held in Constantinople in 1841 which terminated in the triumph of Palmas and the monks. The controversy after wards turned upon a point of doctrine—namely, on the nature of the so-called diA ins light supposed to emanate hymn the soul in this state of contemplation. Other council. were called, one of which, in 1351, again pronounced in favor of the monks, through the influence, it was said, of the court and of the celebrated John Cantaenzentis, who was an ardent patron of the Hesychasts. But the public voice was hostile to the sect, and on the retirement of their patron Cantacuzenus, who, in 1355, became a monk, they fell into obscurity. The controversy about the " thaboritic light," however, is OM cussed in Greek theology. See Mosheim. ii. 659; also Fabricius, Mb. Greve. v. 247. 454; Rubenberg, De He velloRtiv Exereitat, p. 378.
rl if Xl.