Embroilment of hesychasm in the civil war

he rallying of the nobility around Kantakouzenos and of the people around the opposition in Constantinople and John V transformed the dispute over the throne into an out-and-out civil war with social repercussions, while the leaders of the opposing factions also embroiled the issue of hesychasm in the conflict.

The teaching of the hesychasts had spread widely during the middle of the 14th century in Byzantium, expecially in the monasteries, but it had also aroused opposition, resulting in an ecclesiastical controvery expressed mainly through public disputations between the representatives of the two sides, namely Gregory Palamas and Barlaam of Calabria.

During the reign of Andronikos III, the council of 1341 gave the victory to the hesychasts. However, after the Emperor's death, the disputes flared up again. The Patriarch John XIV Kalekas, a member of the regency and opponent of Gregory Palamas, intervened against the latter and had him condemned as a heretic and imprisoned in the spring of 1343, while in 1344 he and his followers were excommunicated. The anti-hesychast stand of the regency allied together in opposition the hesychasts and Kantakouzenos, who had already favoured the movement in the past. Thus, the political and religious disputes became closely entangled. The fact that the hesychast controversy continued to rage after the end of the civil war (1347) is indicative of the violence of the conflict during this turbulent period.