Fortunately
for everyone, Pope Eugene and the Byzantine emperor John VIII (1392-1448) had
already formally agreed to forbid arbitrarily introducing debates on Palamism
into the public discussions. (Christiaan Kappes, The Epiclesis Debate at the
Council of Florence [Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press,
2019], 6)
.
. . The plot proved to be rather complex. In his main outline, Pope Eugene
independently concluded in 1437, from the Franciscan study of Palamism, that
agreement on the essence-attributes doctrine did not constitute a necessary
condition of union. Simultaneously, in the same year, John VIII, Mark of
Ephesus, and George-Gennadius Scholarius had studied Scotism, which was argued
by Scholarius—as witnessed shortly after Florence—and which Scholarius argued
to be equivalent to the doctrine of Palamas on the essence and energies of God.
For his part, Mark appears to have employed Scotism against the Dominicans on
Trinitarian debates in Florence. There were Dominican attempts to make the
Palamite debate in public, but both Pope Eugene and Emperor John agreed to
table the discussion until proper time could be allotted for a full debate
(which never in fact came about). (Ibid., 256 n. 29)
