The Holy Trinity in the Orthodox Christain Spirituality - Religion - http://maxpages.com/democracy/Spirituality_and_Holy

The Christian spirituality, having as goal the deification of man and union with God, without
confusing with Him, has as foundation the conviction of existence of a personal God, who is the supreme
source of the radiant love, and Who, treasuring men, does not want the confusion of men with Him, but the
maintaining and his elevation in an eternal dialogue of love.

Such a spirituality cannot take place where is affirmed an evaluative progress of men in relationship
with a divinity conceived as an impersonal essence. This process cannot have another result than the lost of
men in the impersonal divinity.

The personal God, therefore supreme source of love, cannot be conceived as singular person, but as a communion of Persons in perfect union. This is why the Christian teaching about a trinity of three Persons in a union of being is the only that can constitute the basis of a complete spirituality of man, understood as a full communion with God in love, without being lost in it.

The Holy Trinity is the main revelation of the New Testament therefore of the Christianity, after which the divinity or the essence of God exists as Trinity of persons an hypostasis. The dogma about the Trinity of the divinity is a cardinal dogma, because has implications over the whole Christian teaching. The Eastern tradition departs form the reality of the hypostases in which God Manifests at their consubstantiality, following the principle that from the identity of work emerges the unity of nature.

The spiritual perfection of man, through the eternal union with God, without confusion, cannot take place other than there where is believed in an eternal eschatology of man, in the happy union with God. This kind of eschatology is the natural consequence of the Trinitarian God. The unity of man for eternity is guaranteed and mediated only there where One of the divine Persons was incarnated as man for eternity,
manifesting in this the eternal love of God for man as men. Orthodox Christianity has maintained the spirituality proper to the Christianity revealed in Christ through the fact that has kept the mystery of Trinitarian communion of the Persons in God, not weakened by a rationalist philosophy which, accentuating more the unity of God, has put more in evidence His essence. From this accentuation of the single essence of
God, that tries to avoid the paradoxical combination with the trinity of persons, has resulted the doctrine of the “Filioque,” of the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Father and the Son, that is from divine essence, considering thus the essence as cause of the Person, that leads in fact to an impersonal god, that is pantheist.

The Filioque has been introduced by the Roman Christianity in the Nicean-Constantinopole Creed, and used in the Latin liturgy, beginning with the local synod of Toledo in 589 AD, then confirmed by the English Council Hatfield in 680 AD. In spite of the insistence of the king Carol the Great that the Churches of Spain, Italy, France and Germany to recite the Creed with the addition of the Filioque, Pope Leo III,
refuses the introduction of the Symbol in the Roman Church. With all this opposition , to the proposal of Henry II, the Pope Benedict VIII accepts in 1014 the Creed interpolate in the Roman Church, without the approval of the Eastern Church. The Catholic theology pretends that Filioque would explain the eternal relation between the father and the Son and would clarify the equality of the Father and the Son in the
divine essence, not only the consubstantiality, but the way of provenience of the Persons.

From the Orthodox Theological point of view, have been formulated a couple of arguments against the dogma of the Filioque: (1)The Filioque is an uncanonical interpretation of the ecumenical Symbol form 381 AD; (2) The Filioque implies the doctrine of Augustine about the two principles in the Trinity therefore about the double procession; (3) The Filioque has consequences on other Christian dogmas, for example
eclesiology, the theology of the Sacraments and of the divine energies.

The 7th canon of the Ecumenical Council of the Ephesus (413 AD), prohibits the modification of the Nice-Constantinopole Symbol. The Orthodox have always maintained that the Filioque has been introduced in an uncanonical way in the Symbol of faith.

According to the Orthodox Trinitarian Theology, the Father is the unique source and cause of the divinity, this is why there is a unity of being in God, that does not affect the diversity of the hypostases. The Son is begotten of the Father, and the Holy Spirit proceeds (ekporevomenon, John 15:26). The eternal procession of the Holy Spirit is parallel with the eternal birth of the Son, and they indicate two personal
ways of origin form the same principle: God-the-Father. In this sense Filioque cancels the mono-archia of the Father in divinity, introducing two principles in the Holy Trinity, Father and Son, which leads to the mix-up of the hypostasis. Orthodox Theology gave great attention to the relationship of the Holy Spirit with the Son, without limiting or mixing-up this with the “procession “ of the Holy Spirit form the Son.
The patristic spiritual writings speak about the “Holy Spirit that proceeds from the Father and reveals through the Son,” or of the “Holy Spirit that always on the Son rests.”

The Orthodox Teaching remains faithful to the New Testament; does not rationalize the mystery of God from the Trinity, but starting from the experience of God that communicates to us from love, in the Holy Spirit, through the uncreated energies, does not keep God distant from us, as the monotheistic religions, neither does lead us to the fusion with Him, as in the pantheist religions and philosophies, that
recognize as unique reality an essence of a kind or another.

The teaching about the Holy Trinity has a decisive importance for the spirituality of the believers.
As the Persons of the Holy Trinity exists one in another, in an unity of being, the same the Christians constitute a spiritual communion of faith, hope and love in God. The Church is a unity of being and a communion of life after the image of the Holy Trinity.

“When our Lord says, ‘I and My Father are one’ (John 10:30), He indicates their identity of essence. Again when He says, ‘I am in the Father, and the Father in Me’ (John 14:11), He shows that the Persons cannot be divided. The tritheists, therefore, who divide the Son from the Father, but nevertheless
divide Him form the Father, and so they are forced to say that He is not begotten form the Father; thus they fall into the error of claiming that there are three Gods and three firsts principles. Or else they say that the Son is begotten form the Father but nevertheless divide Him from the Father, and so they are forced to say that He is not coeternal with the Father, thus they make the Lord of time subject to time. For
as Saint Gregory Nazianzos says, it is necessary both to maintain the one God and confess the three Persons, each in his own individuality. According to Saint Gregory, the Divinity is divided but without division and is united but with distinctions. Because of this both the division and the union are paradoxical.

For what paradox would there be if the Son were united to the Father and divided from Him only in the same manner as one human being is united to and divided form another, and nothing more?” (Saint Maximos the Confessor, ‘The Philocalia, Second Century on Love,’ Vol. 2, p. 69-70).

STEFAN CRISBASAN

webmaster@stefanc.findhere.com

Sign Guestbook

View Guestbook

Visitors: 05576

Page Updated Fri Apr 2, 1999 8:59am EST