The Three Persons of the Monothestic God As Explained by the Church Fathers Fr.

Steven Webb

God has revealed Himself to the world in the mystery of the Holy Trinity; God is One, yet at the same time Three; Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Such a

reality is truly a mystery; ultimately incomprehensible, and fraught with contradiction to the logical mind. This topic is much greater than any single

writing could possibly address; yet in this brief essay I will attempt to provide an examination of how the Orthodox Church officially defined each part of the Holy Trinity, as well as examine some of the unique aspects of the individual Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Upon the conclusion of the essay, I will also

attempt to explain how the Orthodox Church understands how these three individual persons work as One in harmonious unity.

God being simultaneously Father, Son and Holy Spirit was instinctually believed by earliest Christians 1, yet later it became necessary for the Church to officially state the correct understanding of the Trinitarian God. As such,

the foundational confession of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit was formally codified in the most basic terms at the Council of Nicea in 325 A.D. in the form

of the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed.2 Such a reality of God being One, yet at the same time Three is truly a mystery; yet the fathers of the Church have been blessed by God, both through the construction of the NiceneConstantinopolitan Creed and revelations at various times throughout history, to explain some of the aspects of the three Persons of the Holy Trinity. Each individual of the Holy Trinity is understood as a distinct Person. Tertullian, writing in the early third century states, . . . the mystery of the dispensation is still guarded, which distributes the Unity into a Trinity, placing in their order the three Persons the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost: three, however, not in condition, but in degree; not in substance, but in form; not in power, but in aspect; yet of one substance, and of one condition, and of one power, inasmuch as He is one God, from whom these degrees and forms and aspects are reckoned, under the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.
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The first Person of the Trinity is the Father. St. Irenaeus of Lions, who lived 130-200 A.D., stated, . . . this is the first order of our faith, the foundation of [the] edifice and the support of our conduct: God, the Father, uncreated, uncontainable, invisible, one God, the Creator of all: this is the first article of our faith.
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In the Nicene Creed, God is referred to as, . . . the

Father all mighty, maker of heaven and earth and of all things visible and invisible.
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St. Cyril of Jerusalem writes, [The] Father . . .

is not

circumscribed in any place, nor is He less than the heaven; but the heavens are the works of His fingers, and the whole earth is held in His grasp: He is in all things and around all. Think not that the sun is brighter than He, or equal to Him: for He who at first formed the sun must needs be incomparably greater and brighter. He foreknoweth the things that shall be, and is mightier than all, knowing all things and doing as He will; not being subject to any necessary sequence of events, nor to nativity, nor chance, nor fate; in all things perfect, and equally possessing every absolute form of virtue, neither diminishing nor increasing, but in mode and conditions ever the same; who hath prepared punishment for sinners, and a crown for the righteous.6 Indeed, the fathers of the Church paint a vivid picture of God in the Personhood of Father in the Holy Trinity as the absolute sovereign Creator, yet this concept of the Father God was well established with the Israelites of old; St. Gregory the Theologian explains, The Old Testament has manifested the Father clearly . . .
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While it

is not within the scope of this essay to detail the many references of God the Father in the Old Testament, I will add it was not until after God became man in the Person of His Son Jesus Christ that the deeper mysteries of the Triune God were revealed.

The second Person of the Holy Trinitarian God is the Lord Jesus Christ. The Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed affirms Him as, . . . the Son of God, the only begotten, begotten of the Father before all ages; Light of Light, true God

of true God; begotten not made; of one essence with the Father, by Whom all things were made; Who for us men and for our salvation came down from the heavens, and was incarnate of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary and became man; And was crucified under Pontius Pilate, and suffered, and was buried; And arose again on the third day according to the scriptures; and ascended into the heavens, and sitteth at the right hand of the Father; and shall come again to judge both the living and the dead; Whose kingdom shall have no end . . .
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Almost three hundred years before the aforementioned creed was

written, the apostle St. Thomas, after touching the holes in the hands and side of the crucified and risen Lord Jesus, declared, My Lord and God! (JN 20:28) Such a revelation, especially for those who have not seen but believe only hearing and faith, (JN 20:29) is at the heart of the relationship between man and Christ, the God-man. Such an event surely gives rise to a most important question; what is the reason that Christ God, the second person of the Holy Trinity, should become human, die and be resurrected?

Indeed, the aforementioned Nicene Creed explicitly states the reason for Christs incarnation is, . . . for our salvation. St. Athanasius, likely writing in the late second century after the Nicene Council, expands upon this truth when he explains . . . The law of death, which followed from the

Transgression [in the Garden of Eden], prevailed upon us, and from it there was no escape. . . It was unworthy of the goodness of God that creatures

made by Him should be brought to nothing through the deceit wrought upon man by the devil . . . The Word [i.e. God] perceived that corruption could not be got rid of otherwise than through death; yet He Himself, as the Word, being immortal and the Father's Son, was such as could not die. For this reason, therefore, He assumed a body capable of death, in order that it, through belonging to the Word Who is above all, might become in dying a sufficient exchange for all, and, itself remaining incorruptible through His indwelling, might thereafter put an end to corruption for all others as well, by the grace of the resurrection.
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Our Lord Jesus Christs bodily resurrection in the flesh also

extends to another mystery that should be addressed; The Church as the body of Christ.

Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, when eating His last supper with His disciples, . . . took bread, and blessed, and brake it . . . and said, Take, eat;

this is my body. And He took a cup, and gave thanks, and gave to them, saying, Drink ye all of it; for this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many unto remission of sins. (Mt. 26:26-28) Jesus also said, "He that eateth My Flesh and drinketh My blood, dwelleth in Me, and I in him," (Jn 6:56). Those who correctly partake of the Body and Blood, which are distributed through priests and bishops directly connected to the original disciples who sat with Christ at the last supper
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, are collectively the Body of Christ. St. John

Maximovitch, a modern day saint from the Russian Church who lived in the

twentieth century, sums up this mystery as such; All who believe in Christ and are united unto Him by giving themselves to Him and by the reception of divine grace conjointly constitute the Church of Christ, the Head of which is Christ Himself, and they who enter into her are her members. The Church is the Body of Christ both because its parts are united to Christ through His divine mysteries and because through her Christ works in the world. We

partake of the Body and Blood of Christ, in the holy Mysteries, so that we ourselves may be members of Christ's Body: the Church.
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In the midst of all

of these fantastic mysteries sits another astounding Truth revealed by St. Paul, . . . I make known to you that no one speaking by the Spirit of God says, "Jesus is accursed"; and no one can say, "Jesus is Lord," except by the Holy Spirit. (1 Cor 12:3). This brings us to the third Person of the Holy Trinity; The Holy Spirit. Continuing on with the Nicene Creed, concerning the Holy Spirit it states, I believe . . . in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the Creator of life, Who proceeds from the Father, Who together with the Father and the Son is worshipped and glorified, Who spoke through the prophets.12 The exact understanding of the third Person of the Holy Trinity 13 is so crucial to the Church that an official split occurred in 1054 A.D., between the Eastern Orthodox Church and the Roman Catholic Church, largely due to a Roman Catholic alteration of the Nicene

Creed. The Roman Catholic alteration, known as the Filioque14, proclaims that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Son, as well as the Father. This alteration puts the Holy Spirit as a subordinate member of the Trinity and takes away Its

individuality. St. Photius the Great spells this concept out when he writes, For if the Son and the Spirit came forth from the same cause, namely, the Father (even though the Spirit is by procession whilst the Son is by begetting); and if as this blasphemy cries out the Spirit also proceeds from the Son, then why not simply tear up the Word [Logos] and propagate the fable that the Spirit also produces the Son, thereby according the same equality of rank to each hypostasis by allowing each hypostasis to produce the other hypostasis? For if each hypostasis is in the other, then of necessity each is the cause and completion of the other. For reason demands equality for each hypostasis so that each hypostasis exchanges the grace of causality indistinguishably.15 To this day, the Eastern Orthodox Church and the Roman Catholic Church remain separated, in spite of many on-going efforts by representatives on each side trying to reconcile such theological issues. What is the function of the Holy Spirit within the Holy Trinity? Boris Bobinskoy, Professor of Dogmatics at the Orthodox Theological Institute of St. Sergius, in Paris, France, while admitting that, Language betrays the mystery of God and of His Church as much as it reveals it . ., makes some bold statements concerning this subject when he writes, . . . the [Holy] Spirits only task is to reveal the face of Christ, to make audible His living Word, and to produce spiritual fruits within the life of a person as within the Church as a whole, as the common life of the Body of Christ. The proper work of the [Holy] Spirit is to teach us the deeper truths of the inner life, to reveal to us the light that shines in the depths of our heart. . . The Holy Spirit is the

personal Master Worker of the Church.16 This line of thinking is in harmony with the words of St. Paul when he writes to the local church in Corinth; What no eye hath seen, what no ear hath heard, and what no human mind hath conceived, the things God hath prepared for those who love him But God hath revealed them unto us by His Spirit: for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God... The things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God" (I Cor. 2:911). The deep things of God revealed by the Holy Spirit are brought more to the surface by St. Seraphim of Sarov, who is considered to be one of the greatest Russian saints of all time. While Professor Boris Bobinskoy writes

about the Holy Spirit being the Master Worker of the Church17, St. Seraphim, who lived from 1754 to 1833, tells us about how to draw the Holy Spirit into our own hearts. He states, The true aim of our Christian life consists in the acquisition of the Holy Spirit of God. As for fasts, and vigils, and prayer, and almsgiving, and every good deed done for Christ's sake, they are only means of acquiring the Holy Spirit of God. . . Acquire the grace of the Holy Spirit also by practicing all the other virtues for Christ's sake. Trade spiritually with [the virtues] ; trade with those which give you the greatest profit. Accumulate capital from the superabundance of God's grace; deposit it in God's eternal bank which will bring you immaterial interest, not four or six percent, but one hundred percent for one spiritual ruble, and even infinitely more than that. For example, if prayer and watching give you more of God's grace, watch and pray; if fasting gives you much of the Spirit of God, fast; if almsgiving gives

you more, give alms. Weigh every virtue done for Christ's sake in this manner.18 For those Christians struggling on earth within the Church to live a God-pleasing life, St. Seraphim gives us a vital piece of truth in context to the concepts presented above by St. Paul and Professor Boris Bobinskoy; that we are also co-workers with the Holy Spirit, making merchandise of the aforementioned virtues to accrue Spiritual Riches in heaven while drawing the warmth of Gods grace within our hearts in this life.

In closing, it is worth mentioning again that understanding the Holy Trinity is impossible for the logical mind. One God consisting of three Persons, yet completely united as one Deity is incomprehensible! As one last notation on the Holy Trinity, and the unity between the three Persons, I would like to include a most glorious statement concerning this Mystery sung in honor of the feast of Pentecost; The Dogmaticon of Great Vespers of Pentecost19; "Come, O ye people, let us worship the Godhead in Three Hypostases: the Son in the Father, with the Holy Spirit; for the Father timelessly begat the Son Who is Co-ever-existing and Coenthroned, and the Holy Spirit was in the Father, glorified together with the Son; One Might, One Essence, One Godhead. In worshipping Whom let us all say: O Holy God, Who madest all things by the Son, through the cooperation of the Holy Spirit; Holy Mighty, through Whom we have known the Father, and through Whom the Holy Spirit came into the world; Holy Immortal, the Comforting Spirit, Who proceedest from the Father,

and restest in the Son: O Holy Trinity, glory be to Thee".

Footnotes:

IOCS Lecture Christology and Trinitarian Theology 1, Dr. Mark Plested, at 2

minutes and 33 second.

2

Nicene Creed, Jordanville Prayer Book, pg. 14 Adversus Praxeam - Against Praxeas, chapter 2, Turtillian. Apostolic Preaching, chapter 6, St. Irenaeus of Lions, Creed, op sit. Cyril of Jerusalem, Gregory Nazianzen, pg.251, St. Cyril of Jerusalem.

Oration 31.26: Fifth Theological Oration , St. Gregory the Theologian

Nicene Creed, op sit. On the Incarnation, Chapter 2, St. Athanasius. The concept of the unbroken connection of the Churchs bishops, priests,

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deacons and lay people throughout history, reaching back directly to Christ is called Apostolic Succession. Once a region was missionized by one of

Christs disciples, bishops, priests and deacons were ordained to serve the

people, thus enabling the local church to continue on in the future as new clergy are ordained as others repose. For bishops, priests and deacons,

Apostolic Succession consists of the laying on of hands in ordination of the clergy in a line that goes back to those original disciples appointed by Christ to spread the Gospel in various areas. For lay people, apostolic succession

exists in the context of being received into the Apostolic Church by one of her clergy. The widely held belief within the Orthodox Church is that those who

are not connected to the Church via Apostolic Succession, are considered outside of the Church.
11

The Church as the Body of Christ , St. John (Maximovitch), short essay

written before 1965.

12

Nicene Creed, op sit. Adversus Praxeam, Ch. 2, op sit. Fillioque is a Latin word added to the Nicene Creed meaning, and (from) the

13

14

Son.
15

Mystagogy of the Holy Spirit, paragraph #3, St. Photius the Great,. The Legacy of St. Vladimir Seminary, The Holy Spirit in the Church, pg. 198,

16

199, Prof. Boris Bobrinskoy.

17

ibid St. Seraphim of Sarov's Conversation With Nicholas Motovilov, Short essay,

18

Nicholas Motivilov.
19

Dogmaticon is a section sung in the Vesperal service which teaches a

specific truth in relation to what is being honored in the Divine Liturgy the following morning. In this instance, the Dogmaticon of Great Vespers of

Pentecost, which is a major feast celebrating the coming of the Holy Spirit to the disciples of Christ, speaks about the Holy Trinity.

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HOLY TRINITY MONASTERY. Jordanville Prayer Book, Fourth Edition Revised, New York, Printing Shop of St. Job of Pochaev at the Holy Trinity Monastery, 2003.

KING JAMES BIBLE, Authorized King James Version, originally published, England, 1769.

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http://orthodoxinfo.com/praxis/wonderful.aspx

PLESTED, Dr. Marcus, Trinity in the New Testament and the Sub-Apostolic Period, A lecture given at the Institute for Orthodox Christian Studies,

Cambridge, UK. 2007. Source: restricted on-line audio: Gospels Module, IOCS. http://iocstudies.net/iocs.ac.uk/moodle/login/index.php

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329- 391, publishers:

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domain,

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publishers:

http://www.myriobiblos.gr/texts/english/photios_mystagogy1.html

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