INTRODUCTION

Abstract

The Holy Synod of the Romanian Orthodox Church dedicated the year 2022 to the importance of prayer in the life of Christians and to the commemoration of three renowned hesychast saints, St. Symeon the New Theologian, St. Gregory Palamas, and St. Paisius Velichkovsky of Neamț. In this context, the present special issue, Hesychasm: Theology and Praxis from Late Byzantium to Modernity, gathers contributions on topics related to hesychast prayer and the Hesychast Controversy of the fourteenth-century. The papers here included cover a wide range of themes, from the thirteenth-century debates on the Filioque to the practice of watchfulness, attention, and the Jesus Prayer in modern society. The authors are leading specialists in the fields of theology, philosophy, and history, both ecclesiastics and laymen.