Fake? Alternative? The Two Versions of Palamas’ Third Letter to Gregory Acindynus Reconsidered

In 1974, the Jesuit scholar Juan Nadal Cañellas presented a new version of Palamas’ Third Letter to Gregory Acindynus that was completely different from the version published in 1953 by the Orthodox theologian John Meyendorff in many, but not all of its parts. Is this new letter version, extant only in Monac. gr. 223, a fake version, produced by Acindynus in order to destroy his former teacher and friend Palamas, who became his worst theological enemy in the Hesychast Controversy, as Meyendorff argued? Or does the version in Monac. gr. 223 rather represent Palamas’ original letter to Acindynus, whereas the other version is a fake, produced by Palamas himself in order to provide alternative facts and tone down statements of his bold theological conceptions and views, as Nadal Cañellas suggested?
This paper tries to shed new light on a document that played a decisive role in the Hesychast Controversy and again caused a fierce quarrel among scholars in the last quarter of the last century. I will examine to what extent an analysis of Monac. gr. 223 and its wider context can contribute to a better understanding of the dispute(s). At the same time, a closer look at Byzantine publication habits in general and the genre of Byzantine letters in particular will allow to reconsider the phenomenon of the two versions of Palamas’ Third Letter to Acindynus.