He was involved in the theological dispute surrounding the doctrine of
Uncreated Light between
Gregory Palamas and
Barlaam of Calabria in the 1340s. As a student of Palamas', he mediated between the two from 1337, warning Barlaam in 1340 that his attempts against his doctrine would be futile, but from 1341 he became critical of Palamas' position, denouncing it as
Messalianism, and came to be Palamas' most dangerous adversary after Barlaam's return to Calabria. He was
excommunicated at the
Council of Constantinople of 1347 and died in exile, apparently a victim of the
plague of 1348.
J.-S. Nadal, "La critique par Akindynos de l'herméneutique patristique de Palamas," Istina 19 (1974), 297–328.
J. Nadal Cañellas, ed. Gregorii Acindyni refutationes duae operis Gregorii Palamae cui titulus Dialogus inter Orthodoxum et Barlaamitam (Louvain 1995). [= Corpus Christianorum Series Graeca, 31.] (Greek text of Acindynus' treatises against a work by Palamas titled Dialogue between an Orthodox and a Barlaamite.)
J. Nadal Cañellas, La résistance d' Akindynos à Grégoire Palamas. Enquête historique, avec traduction et commentaire de quatre traités édités récemment. I-II (Louvain 2003) [= Spicilegium Sacrum Lovaniense. Études et documents 50 - 51]. (Gives a French translation, with important historical commentary, of the treatises edited by Nadal Cañellas in 1995.)
Juan Nadal Canellas, "Le rôle de Grégoire Akindynos dans la controverse hésychaste du XIVeme siècle à Byzance," in Juan Pedro Monferrer-Sala (ed.), Eastern Crossroads: Essays on Medieval Christian Legacy (Piscataway: Gorgias Press LLC, 2007) (Gorgias Eastern Christian Studies, 1), 31–60. (For an English translation of this, see:
Gregory Akindynos’s role in the 14th-century hesychast controversy.)
^Angela Constantinides Hero as ed., Letters of Gregory Akindynos: Greek Text and English Translation, Volume 21 от Corpus fontium historiae Byzantinae, Dumbarton Oaks, Research Library and Collection, 1983,
ISBN0884021076, p. IX.
^Maurice LaBauve Hébert, Hesychasm, Word-weaving, and Slavic Hagiography: The Literary School of Patriarch Euthymius, Brown University, 1992, p. 478.
^Ihor Ševčenko, Society and Intellectual Life in Late Byzantium, Vol. 137 of Collected Studies, Variorum Reprint, 1981,
ISBN086078083X, p 74.