I don't believe I said we have a relationship with an "Essence". We share in the Divine Nature in that we share in the communion of love between the Father and the Son. We enter into this communion because of Christ's Incarnation, which is HOW we come to know the Father. This is not the language of metaphysics, in practical terms. Our relationship with God is personal. But when discussing the terminology of the Godhead, we use such terms as "essence" to more properly describe the relationship between the Father and the Son.
Hence St. Ambrose and St. Hilary, we Orthodox would believe, lived their spiritual lives through participation in the divine energies no less than did St. John Chyrsostom or St. Gregory Palamas -- even if the terminology used did not have the precision and nuances of Palamite theology, which was honed because of facing heresy.
I think that is why I, along with Vatican 2, have recognized that our respective views are complimentary, not contradictory. The distinctions made by St. Palamas are based on the experiences of Eastern Monks saying the Jesus Prayer, identifying the "Light" seen in prayer. The Western Fathers have their own tradition of this "Light" and what it is. We have always considered that God is One, thus, it is difficult for us to see the distinction between God and "uncreated energies" and how it relates to the Doctrines set down at Chalcedon. The only difference between the Father, Son, and Spirit is in generation within the Trinity, which is eternally "happening". "Uncreated energies", to me, seems to change the meaning of Chalcedon. However, I am probably misunderstanding the idea of "uncreated energies".
In any case, this speculation was not the reason for the Great Schism.
Regards
"I don't believe I said we have a relationship with an "Essence"."
I didn't say you did. What I said what that the unity of the Holy Trinity is found in a single person -- the Father -- not an abstract and impersonal essence or nature. When you stated that the Spirit proceeds from a single Principle, that sounded awfully abstract and impersonal. We say that the Spirit proceeds from a single Person: the Father.
"We share in the Divine Nature in that we share in the communion of love between the Father and the Son."
I don't think that Orthodox theology would say that we share in the Divine Nature. We have one nature, and that is a human nature. Only in the God-man Jesus Christ are human and divine natures (physis) found in the same individual. We *partake* of the divine nature, as St. Peter writes -- but we would never imagine that when we partake of the Body and Blood of Christ in the Mystical Supper that we become divine by nature, let alone in essence/substance.
"We enter into this communion because of Christ's Incarnation, which is HOW we come to know the Father."
Yes and no. If this were the only way of looking at it, we would be forced to say that the Old Testament Righteous did not reach states of theosis -- that they did not directly encounter God as far as they were able to bear it, etc. Patristic teaching is that they did reach theosis, although in a necessarily temporary form, since death had not yet been conquered through the Resurrection. That said, the Incarnation radically changed the way and extent to which man can be drawn to God.
"This is not the language of metaphysics, in practical terms. Our relationship with God is personal. But when discussing the terminology of the Godhead, we use such terms as "essence" to more properly describe the relationship between the Father and the Son."
I agree with much of what you have written in this section. But again, the fundamental relationship between the Father and the Son is not that they share a common essence or nature -- it is that the Father begets the Son and the Son is begotten of the Father. This is the starting point of what we know about their relationship.
The point I have been trying to convey is that in Orthodox understandings of the Trinity, all metaphysical definitions are secondary. The personal and the practical are the starting points -- and the Incarnation is of course at the center of that: "he who has seen me has seen the Father."
In subsequent posts, you and Kolokotronis have gone much further down the uncreated energies path, so I limit my comments.
I would say, though, that the terminology of the uncreated energies is a way of expressing a number of truths that are throughout Scripture and the patristic writings, none of which began with St. Gregory and the hesychasts:
1. We are partakers of the divine nature, as St. Peter says -- this tells us that there is a direct participation in the life of God, without created intermediaries of any sort.
2. We not only cannot become God in his essence or his nature, we cannot even presume to *know* or apprehend the essence of God
3. Our participation in this life of God is not experienced only by our souls, but is also meant to be experienced by our bodies