What does the three unity of God mean. About the procession of the Holy Spirit. Misconceptions about the Trinity

Priest Oleg Davydenkov

From lectures on dogmatic theology at the Orthodox St. Tikhon Theological Institute

The dogma of the Holy Trinity is the foundation of the Christian religion

God is one in essence, but trinity in persons: Father, Son and Holy Spirit, the Trinity consubstantial and indivisible.

The very word "Trinity" of non-biblical origin was introduced into the Christian lexicon in the second half of the 2nd century by Saint Theophilus of Antioch. The doctrine of the Holy Trinity is given in the Christian Revelation.

The dogma of the Most Holy Trinity is incomprehensible, it is a mysterious dogma, incomprehensible at the level of reason. For the human mind, the doctrine of the Holy Trinity is contradictory, because it is a mystery that cannot be expressed rationally.

It is no coincidence that o. Pavel Florensky called the dogma of the Holy Trinity "a cross for human thought." In order to accept the dogma of the Most Holy Trinity, the sinful human mind must reject its claims to the ability to know everything and rationally explain everything, i.e., in order to comprehend the mystery of the Most Holy Trinity, it is necessary to reject one’s own understanding.

The mystery of the Holy Trinity is comprehended, and only in part, in the experience of spiritual life. This comprehension is always associated with an ascetic feat. VN Lossky says: "Apophatic ascent is an ascent to Golgotha, therefore no speculative philosophy could ever rise to the mystery of the Holy Trinity."

Belief in the Trinity distinguishes Christianity from all other monotheistic religions: Judaism, Islam. The doctrine of the Trinity is the foundation of all Christian faith and moral teaching, for example, the doctrine of God the Savior, God the Sanctifier, etc. V.N. ... to know the mystery of the Holy Trinity in its fullness means to enter into the Divine life, into the very life of the Holy Trinity."

The doctrine of the Triune God comes down to three propositions:

1) God is trinity and trinity consists in the fact that there are three Persons (hypostases) in God: Father, Son, Holy Spirit.
2) Each Person of the Most Holy Trinity is God, but They are not three Gods, but the essence of a single Divine Being.
3) All three Persons differ in personal or hypostatic properties.

Analogies of the Holy Trinity in the world

The Holy Fathers, in order to somehow bring the doctrine of the Holy Trinity closer to the perception of man, used various kinds of analogies borrowed from the created world.

For example, the sun and the light and heat emanating from it. A source of water, a spring from it, and, in fact, a stream or a river. Some see an analogy in the arrangement of the human mind (St. Ignatius Brianchaninov. Ascetic experiments): "Our mind, word and spirit, by the simultaneity of their beginning and by their mutual relations, serve as an image of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit."

However, all these analogies are very imperfect. If we take the first analogy - the sun, outgoing rays and heat - then this analogy implies a certain temporal process. If we take the second analogy - the source of water, the key and the stream, then they differ only in our imagination, but in reality they are one and the same. water element. As for the analogy connected with the abilities of the human mind, it can only be an analogy of the image of the Revelation of the Most Holy Trinity in the world, but not of intra-trinitarian being. Moreover, all these analogies place unity above trinity.

St. Basil the Great considered the rainbow to be the most perfect of analogies borrowed from the created world, because "one and the same light is both continuous in itself and multicolored." "And in the multicoloredness a single face opens - there is no middle and no transition between colors. It is not visible where the rays are demarcated. We clearly see the difference, but we cannot measure the distances. And in the aggregate, the multicolored rays form a single white. A single essence opens in a multicolored radiance."

The disadvantage of this analogy is that the colors of the spectrum are not separate personalities. In general, patristic theology is characterized by a very wary attitude towards analogies.

An example of such an attitude is the 31st Word of St. Gregory the Theologian: "Finally, I concluded that it is best to depart from all images and shadows, as deceptive and far from reaching the truth, but to keep a more pious way of thinking, dwelling on a few sayings" .

In other words, there are no images to represent in our mind this dogma; all images borrowed from the created world are very imperfect.

A Brief History of the Dogma of the Holy Trinity

Christians have always believed that God is one in essence, but trinity in persons, but the dogmatic doctrine of the Holy Trinity itself was created gradually, usually in connection with the emergence of various kinds of heretical delusions. The doctrine of the Trinity in Christianity has always been associated with the doctrine of Christ, with the doctrine of the Incarnation. Trinitarian heresies, trinitarian disputes had a Christological basis.

Indeed, the doctrine of the Trinity was made possible by the Incarnation. As they say in the troparion of Theophany, in Christ "Trinity worship appeared." The doctrine of Christ is "a stumbling block for the Jews, but foolishness for the Greeks" (1 Cor. 1:23). Likewise, the doctrine of the Trinity is a stumbling block for both "strict" Jewish monotheism and Hellenic polytheism. Therefore, all attempts to rationally comprehend the mystery of the Most Holy Trinity led to delusions of either a Jewish or Hellenic nature. The first dissolved the Persons of the Trinity in a single nature, for example, the Sabellians, while others reduced the Trinity to three unequal beings (Arians).

Arianism was condemned in 325 at the First Ecumenical Council of Nicaea. The main act of this Council was the compilation of the Nicene Creed, in which non-biblical terms were introduced, among which the term "omousios" - "consubstantial" played a special role in the trinitarian disputes of the 4th century.

To reveal the true meaning of the term "homousios" it took great efforts of the great Cappadocians: Basil the Great, Gregory the Theologian and Gregory of Nyssa.

The great Cappadocians, first of all, Basil the Great, strictly distinguished between the concepts of "essence" and "hypostasis". Basil the Great defined the difference between "essence" and "hypostasis" as between the general and the particular.

According to the teaching of the Cappadocians, the essence of the Deity and its distinctive properties, i.e., the unbeginning of being and the divine dignity belong equally to all three hypostases. The Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are its manifestations in the Persons, each of which has the fullness of the divine essence and is in inseparable unity with it. The hypostases differ from each other only in personal (hypostatic) properties.

In addition, the Cappadocians actually identified (primarily two Gregory: Nazianzus and Nyssa) the concept of "hypostasis" and "person". "Face" in theology and philosophy of that time was a term that belonged not to the ontological, but to the descriptive plan, that is, the mask of an actor or the legal role that a person performed could be called a face.

By identifying "person" and "hypostasis" in trinitarian theology, the Cappadocians thereby transferred this term from the descriptive plane to the ontological plane. The consequence of this identification was, in essence, the emergence of a new concept that the ancient world did not know: this term is "personality". The Cappadocians succeeded in reconciling the abstractness of Greek philosophical thought with the biblical idea of a personal Deity.

The main thing in this teaching is that a person is not a part of nature and cannot be thought in terms of nature. The Cappadocians and their immediate disciple St. Amphilochius of Iconium called the Divine hypostases "ways of being" of the Divine nature. According to their teaching, a person is a hypostasis of being, which freely hypostasizes its nature. Thus, a personal being in its concrete manifestations is not predetermined by an essence that is given to it from the outside, therefore God is not an essence that would precede Persons. When we call God the absolute Personality, we thereby want to express the idea that God is not determined by any external or internal necessity, that He is absolutely free in relation to His own being, is always what He wants to be and always acts in such a way, as he wants, i.e. freely hypostasizes His triune nature.

Indications of the Trinity (plurality) of Persons in God in the Old and New Testaments

In the Old Testament there are a sufficient number of indications of the trinity of Persons, as well as covert indications of the plurality of persons in God without indicating a specific number.

This plurality is already spoken of in the first verse of the Bible (Genesis 1:1): "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." The verb "bara" (created) is in the singular, and the noun "elohim" is in the plural, which literally means "gods".

Gen. 1:26: "And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness." The word "make" is plural. The same Gen. 3:22: "And God said, Behold, Adam has become like one of Us, knowing good and evil." "Of Us" is also plural.

Gen. 11:6-7, where we are talking about the Babylonian pandemonium: "And the Lord said: ... let us go down and confound their language there," the word "we will go down" is in the plural. St. Basil the Great in Shestodnev (Conversation 9) comments on these words as follows: “Truely strange idle talk is to assert that someone sits to himself, orders, oversees himself, compels himself authoritatively and urgently. The second is an indication actually into three Persons, but without naming the persons and without distinguishing them.

XVIII chapter of the book of "Genesis", the appearance of three angels to Abraham. At the beginning of the chapter it says that God appeared to Abraham, in the Hebrew text is "Jehovah". Abraham, going out to meet the three strangers, bows to them and addresses them with the word "Adonai", literally "Lord", in the singular.

There are two interpretations of this passage in patristic exegesis. First: the Son of God, the Second Person of the Most Holy Trinity, appeared, accompanied by two angels. We find such an interpretation in Mch. Justin the Philosopher, from St. Hilary of Pictavia, from St. John Chrysostom, from Blessed Theodoret of Cyrrhus.

However, most of the fathers - Saints Athanasius of Alexandria, Basil the Great, Ambrose of Milan, Blessed Augustine - believe that this is the appearance of the Holy Trinity, the first revelation to man about the Trinity of the Godhead.

It was the second opinion that was accepted by Orthodox Tradition and found its embodiment, firstly, in hymnography, which speaks of this event precisely as a manifestation of the Triune God, and in iconography (the famous icon "Old Testament Trinity").

Blessed Augustine ("On the City of God", book 26) writes: "Abraham meets three, worships one. Seeing three, he comprehended the mystery of the Trinity, and bowing as if to one, he confessed the One God in Three Persons."

An indication of the trinity of God in the New Testament is, first of all, the Baptism of the Lord Jesus Christ in the Jordan from John, which received the name of Theophany in Church Tradition. This event was the first clear Revelation to mankind about the Trinity of the Godhead.

Further, the commandment about baptism, which the Lord gives to His disciples after the Resurrection (Matt. 28, 19): "Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit." Here the word "name" is in the singular, although it refers not only to the Father, but also to the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit together. St. Ambrose of Milan comments on this verse as follows: "The Lord said 'in the name', and not 'in the names', because there is one God, not many names, because there are not two Gods and not three Gods."

2 Cor. 13:13: "The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God the Father, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all." With this expression, the apostle Paul emphasizes the personality of the Son and the Spirit, which give gifts along with the Father.

1, In. 5:7: "Three bear witness in heaven: the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit; and these three are one." This passage from the epistle of the apostle and evangelist John is controversial, since this verse is not found in ancient Greek manuscripts.

Prologue of the Gospel of John (John 1, 1): "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." Here God is understood to mean the Father, and the Son is called the Word, i.e., the Son was eternally with the Father and was eternally God.

The Transfiguration of the Lord is also the Revelation of the Holy Trinity. Here is how V.N. Lossky comments on this event in the gospel story: “Therefore, the Epiphany and the Transfiguration are celebrated so solemnly. We celebrate the Revelation of the Most Holy Trinity, for the voice of the Father was heard and the Holy Spirit was present. In the first case under the guise of a dove, in the second - as shining cloud that overshadowed the apostles.

Difference of Divine Persons according to hypostatic properties

According to church teaching, Hypostases are Personalities, and not impersonal forces. At the same time, hypostases have a single nature. Naturally, the question arises, how to distinguish between them?

All divine properties belong to common nature, they are characteristic of all three Hypostases and, therefore, in themselves they cannot express the differences of the Divine Persons. It is impossible to give an absolute definition of each Hypostasis using one of the Divine names.

One of the features of personal existence is that a person is unique and unrepeatable, and therefore, it cannot be defined, it cannot be subsumed under a certain concept, since the concept always generalizes; impossible to lead to common denominator. Therefore, a personality can be perceived only through its relation to other personalities.

This is exactly what we see in the Holy Scriptures, where the idea of Divine Persons is based on the relationships that exist between them.

Starting approximately from the end of the 4th century, we can talk about generally accepted terminology, according to which hypostatic properties are expressed in the following terms: the Father has unbegottenness, the Son has begottenness (from the Father), and the procession (from the Father) of the Holy Spirit. Personal properties are properties that are incommunicable, eternally remaining unchanged, exclusively belonging to one or another of the Divine Persons. Thanks to these properties, the Persons are distinguished from each other, and we recognize them as special Hypostases.

At the same time, distinguishing three Hypostases in God, we confess the Trinity consubstantial and indivisible. Consubstantial means that the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are three independent Divine Persons possessing all divine perfections, but these are not three special separate beings, not three Gods, but the One God. They have a single and indivisible Divine nature. Each of the Persons of the Trinity possesses the divine nature in perfection and wholly.

Dogma of the Trinity- the main dogma of Christianity. God is one, one in essence, but trinity in Persons.

(The concept of “ face", or hypostasis, (not face) is close to the concepts of “personality”, “consciousness”, personality).

The first Person is God the Father, the second Person is God the Son, the third Person is God the Holy Spirit.

These are not three Gods, but one God in three Persons, the Trinity Consubstantial and Indivisible.

St. Gregory the Theologian teaches:

"We worship the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, sharing personal attributes and uniting the Godhead."

All three Persons have the same Divine Dignity, between them there is neither older nor younger; just as God the Father is true God, so God the Son is true God, so the Holy Spirit is true God. Each Person carries in Himself all the properties of the Divine. Since God is one in His essence, then all the properties of God - His eternity, omnipotence, omnipresence and others - belong equally to all three Persons of the Most Holy Trinity. In other words, the Son of God and the Holy Spirit are eternal and omnipotent, like God the Father.

They differ only in that God the Father is neither born nor emanates from anyone; The Son of God is born from God the Father - eternally (timeless, without beginning, endlessly), and the Holy Spirit proceeds from God the Father.

The Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, - eternally abide with each other in uninterrupted love and constitute one Being by Himself. God is the most perfect Love. God is love Himself in Himself, because the existence of the One God is the existence of Divine Hypostases, abiding among themselves in the “eternal movement of love” (St. Maximus the Confessor).

1. The dogma of the Holy Trinity

God is one in Essence and three in Persons. The dogma of the Trinity is the main dogma of Christianity. A number of great dogmas of the Church and, above all, the dogma of our redemption are directly based on it. Because of its special importance, the doctrine of the Holy Trinity constitutes the content of all the creeds that have been and are being used in Orthodox Church, as well as all private confessions of faith written on various occasions by the pastors of the Church.

Being the most important of all Christian dogmas, the dogma of the Most Holy Trinity is at the same time the most difficult for limited human thought to assimilate it. That is why the struggle was not so tense in the history of the ancient Church about any other Christian truth as about this dogma and about the truths directly connected with it.

The dogma of the Holy Trinity contains two basic truths:

A. God is one in Essence, but three in Persons, or in other words: God is triune, trinitarian, consubstantial Trinity.

B. Hypostases have personal or hypostatic properties: The father is not born. The Son is born from the Father. The Holy Spirit comes from the Father.

2. About the Unity of God - the Holy Trinity

Rev. John of Damascus:

“So we believe in one God, one principle, without beginning, uncreated, unborn, incorruptible, equally immortal, eternal, infinite, indescribable, limitless, omnipotent, simple, uncompound, incorporeal, alien flow, impassive, immutable and unchanging, invisible, - the source of goodness and truth, the light of the mind and unapproachable, - in strength, indefinable by any measure and only measured by one's own will, - for everything that it desires, can, - all creatures visible and invisible, the creator, all-encompassing and preserving, providing for everything, all-powerful , who rules over everything and reigns in an endless and immortal kingdom, having no rival, filling everything, not embracing anything, but all-encompassing, containing and exceeding everything, which penetrates all essences, itself remaining pure, stays outside the limits of everything and is withdrawn from the ranks of all beings as transcendent and above all existing, pre-divine, blessed, full, which is tired presses all principalities and ranks, and she herself is higher than any principality and rank, higher than essence, life, word and understanding, which is light itself, goodness itself, life itself, essence itself, since it has neither being nor anything from another from what is, but it is itself the source of being for everything that exists, life for everything living, reason for everything rational, the cause of all blessings for all beings, into the force that knows everything before the existence of everything, a single essence, a single Deity , one power, one desire, one action, one beginning, one power, one dominion, one kingdom, in three perfect hypostases known and worshiped by one worship, believed and revered from every verbal creature (in hypostases), inseparably united and inseparably divided, which is incomprehensible - into the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, in whose name we were baptized, for thus the Lord commanded the Apostles to baptize, saying: “baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit” (Matt. 28, 19).

... And that God is one, and not many, this is undoubtedly for those who believe in Divine Scripture. For the Lord, at the beginning of His statute, says: “I am the Lord thy God, who brought thee out of the land of Egypt; and again: “Hear, O Israel, the Lord your God, the Lord is one” (Deut. 6:4); and in Isaiah the prophet: “I am the first God and I am after these, besides Me there is no God” (Is. 41, 4) - “Before Me there was no other God, and according to Me it will not be ... and is there really Me” (Is. 43, 10–11). And the Lord in the Holy Gospels says this to the Father: “Behold, this is the eternal life, that they may know Thee the only true God” (John 17:3).

With those who do not believe the Divine Scripture, we will reason thus: God is perfect and has no shortcomings, both in goodness, and in wisdom, and in power, is without beginning, infinite, everlasting, unlimited, and, in a word, is perfect according to everything. So, if we admit many gods, then it will be necessary to recognize the difference between these many. For if there is no difference between them, then there is already one, and not many; if there is a difference between them, where is the perfection? If there is a lack of perfection, either in goodness, or in power, or in wisdom, or in time, or in place, then God will no longer exist. Identity in everything indicates one God rather than many.

Moreover, if there were many gods, how would their indescribability be preserved? For where there was one, there would not be another.

How then would the world be ruled by many, and not be destroyed and upset when there was war between the rulers? Because difference introduces confrontation. If someone says that each of them governs his part, then what introduced such an order and made a division between them? This one would actually be God. So, there is only one God, perfect, indescribable, Creator of everything, Sustainer and Ruler, above and before all perfection.
(An accurate statement of the Orthodox faith)

Protopresbyter Michael Pomazansky (Orthodox dogmatic theology):

"I believe in one God" - the first words of the Creed. God owns all the fullness of the most perfect being. The idea of completeness, perfection, infinity, comprehensiveness in God does not allow one to think of Him otherwise than as the One, i.e. unique and consubstantial in itself. This requirement of our consciousness was expressed by one of the ancient church writers in the words: "if God is not alone, then there is no God" (Tertullian), in other words, a deity, limited by another being, loses its divine dignity.

All New Testament Holy Scripture is filled with the doctrine of one God. "Our Father, who art in heaven," we pray with the words of the Lord's Prayer. "There is no other God but One," the apostle Paul expresses the fundamental truth of faith (1 Cor. 8:4).

3. On the Trinity of Persons in God with the unity of God in Essence.

“The Christian truth of the unity of God is deepened by the truth of the unity of the trinity.

We worship the Most Holy Trinity with one undivided worship. In the Fathers of the Church and in worship, the Trinity is often referred to as "a unit in the Trinity, a Trinitarian unit." In most cases, prayers addressed to the venerated one Person of the Holy Trinity end with a doxology to all three Persons (for example, in a prayer to the Lord Jesus Christ: "For thou art glorified with Your Beginningless Father and with the Most Holy Spirit forever, amen").

The Church, turning in prayer to the Most Holy Trinity, calls on Her in the singular, and not in the plural, for example: “For it is You (and not You) that all the powers of heaven praise, and to You (and not You) we send glory, the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit now and forever and forever and ever, amen."

The Christian Church, recognizing the mystique of this dogma, sees in it a great revelation that elevates the Christian faith immeasurably above any confession of simple monotheism, which is also found in other non-Christian religions.

...Three Divine Persons, having eternal and eternal being, are revealed to the world with the coming and incarnation of the Son of God, being "one Power, one Being, one Divinity" (stichera on the day of Pentecost).

Since God, by His very Essence, is all consciousness and thought and self-consciousness, then each of these tripartite eternal manifestations of Himself by the One God has self-consciousness, and therefore each is a Person, and Persons are not simply forms or single phenomena, or properties, or actions; Three Persons are contained in the very Unity of the Being of God. Thus, when in Christian teaching we speak of the Trinity of God, we speak about the mysterious inner life of God hidden in the depths of the Godhead, revealed - ajar to the world in time, in the New Testament, by the sending from the Father into the world of the Son of God and the action of the miraculous, life-giving, saving power of the Comforter - the Holy Spirit.

"The Most Holy Trinity is the most perfect union of three Persons in one Being, because it is the most perfect equality."

“God is a Spirit, a simple Being. How does the spirit manifest itself? Thought, word and deed. Therefore, God, as a simple Being, does not consist of a series or of many thoughts, or of many words or creations, but He is all in one simple thought - God the Trinity, or in one simple word- Trinity, or in three Persons united together. But He is all and in everything that exists, everything passes, everything fills with Himself. For example, you read a prayer, and He is all in every word, like Holy Fire, penetrates every word: - everyone can experience this himself if he prays sincerely, earnestly, with faith and love.

4. Old Testament evidence of the Holy Trinity

The truth of the trinity of God is only veiledly expressed in the Old Testament, only ajar. The Old Testament testimonies about the Trinity are revealed, understood in the light of the Christian faith, just as the Apostle writes about the Jews: "... until now, when they read Moses, the veil lies on their hearts, but when they turn to the Lord, this veil is removed ... it is removed by Christ"(2 Cor. 3, 14-16).

The main Old Testament passages are as follows:

Gen. 1, 1, etc.: the name "Elohim" in the Hebrew text, which has a grammatical plural form.

Gen. 1, 26: " And God said, Let us make man in our image, and after the likeness of". The plural indicates that God is not one Person.

Gen. 3, 22:" And the Lord God said, Behold, Adam has become like one of us, knowing good and evil"(God's words before the expulsion of the forefathers from paradise).

Gen. 11, 6-7: before the confusion of tongues during the pandemonium - " One people and one language for all ... Let's go down and mix their language there".

Gen. 18, 1-3 : about Abraham - " And the Lord appeared to him at the oak forest of Mavre ... lifted (Abraham) his eyes, and, behold, three men stand opposite him ... and bowed to the ground and said: ... if I have found favor in Your eyes, do not pass by Your servant"-" You see, Blessed Augustine instructs, Abraham meets the Three, and worships the One ... Having seen the Three, he comprehended the mystery of the Trinity, and bowing as the One, he confessed the One God in three Persons.

In addition, the Fathers of the Church see an indirect reference to the Trinity in the following places:

Number 6:24-26: A priestly blessing indicated by God through Moses, in trinity form: " May the Lord bless you ... may the Lord look upon you with His bright face ... may the Lord turn His face on you…".

Is. 6.3: Doxology of the seraphim standing around the Throne of God, in threefold form: "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts".

Ps. 32, 6 : "".

Finally, it is possible to indicate in the Old Testament Revelation the places where it is spoken separately about the Son of God and the Holy Spirit.

About the Son:

Ps. 2, 7:" You are my Son; I have now begotten you".

Ps. 109, 3: "... from the womb before the morning star like dew your birth ".

About Spirit:

Ps. 142, 10:" May your good spirit guide me to the land of righteousness."

Is. 48, 16: "... The Lord sent me and His Spirit".

And other similar places.

5. Evidence of the Holy Scriptures of the New Testament about the Holy Trinity

The Trinity of Persons in God is revealed in the New Testament in the coming of the Son of God and in the sending down of the Holy Spirit. The message to earth from the Father God the Word and the Holy Spirit is the content of all New Testament writings. Of course, the appearance of the Triune God to the world is given here not in a dogmatic formula, but in the narrative of the appearances and deeds of the Persons of the Holy Trinity.

The manifestation of God in the Trinity took place at the baptism of the Lord Jesus Christ, which is why the baptism itself is called Theophany. The Son of God, having become man, received water baptism; The Father testified of Him; The Holy Spirit, by His appearance in the form of a dove, confirmed the truth of the voice of God, as expressed in the troparion of the feast of the Baptism of the Lord:

"In the Jordan, baptized by You, Lord, the Trinity appeared worship, Parents for the voice testifying to You, calling Your beloved Son, and the Spirit, in the form of a dove, knowing your word affirmation."

There are sayings in the New Testament Scriptures about the Triune God in the most concise, but, moreover, exact form, expressing the truth of the trinity.

These sayings are as follows:

Matt. 28, 19:" Go therefore, make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit". - St. Ambrose remarks: "The Lord said: in the name, and not in the names, because there is one God; not many names: because there are not two Gods and not three Gods.

2 Cor. 13, 13:" The grace of the Lord (our) Jesus Christ, and the love of God (Father), and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit with you all. Amen".

1 In. 5, 7:" For there are three that testify in heaven: the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit; and these three are the essence of one"(This verse is not found in the surviving ancient Greek manuscripts, but only in Latin, Western manuscripts).

In addition, in the meaning of the Trinity explains St. Athanasius the Great following the text of the epistle to Eph. 4, 6:" One God and Father of all, who is above all ( God the Father) and through all (God the Son) and in all of us (God the Holy Spirit)."

6. Confession of the dogma of the Holy Trinity in the ancient Church

The truth about the Holy Trinity is confessed by the Church of Christ from the beginning in all its fullness and integrity. Clearly speaks, for example, about the universality of faith in the Holy Trinity St. Irenaeus of Lyons, student of St. Polycarp of Smyrna, instructed by the Apostle John the Theologian himself:

"Although the Church is scattered throughout the universe to the end of the earth, from the apostles and their disciples she received faith in one God the Father Almighty ... and in one Jesus Christ, the Son of God, incarnate for our salvation, and in the Holy Spirit, through the prophets proclaimed the dispensation of our salvation ... Having accepted such a sermon and such a faith, the Church, as we said, although scattered throughout the world, carefully preserves it, as if dwelling in one house; equally believes in this, as if having one soul and one heart, and preaches according to about this he teaches and conveys, as if having one mouth.Although there are many dialects in the world, but the power of Tradition is one and the same... And of the primates of the Churches, neither the one who is strong in word nor the one who unskilled in words."

The Holy Fathers, defending the catholic truth of the Holy Trinity from heretics, not only cited the testimony of Holy Scripture as proof, but also rational, philosophical grounds for refuting heretical sophistication, but they themselves relied on the evidence of the early Christians. They pointed to examples of martyrs and confessors who were not afraid to declare their faith in the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit before the tormentors; they referred to the Scriptures of the apostolic and ancient Christian writers in general and to liturgical formulas.

So, St. Basil the Great gives a small doxology:

“Glory to the Father through the Son in the Holy Spirit,” and another: “To Him (Christ) with the Father and the Holy Spirit, honor and glory forever and ever,” and says that this doxology has been used in churches since the very time the Gospel was proclaimed . Indicates St. Basil also gives thanksgiving by the lamp, or the evening song, calling it an "ancient" song, passed down "from the fathers", and quotes from it the words: "We praise the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit of God", to show the faith of ancient Christians in the equal honor of the Holy Spirit with the Father and the Son.

St. Basil the Great also writes, interpreting Genesis:

“Let us make man in Our image, and in that likeness” (Genesis 1:26).

You have learned that there are two persons: the speaker and the one to whom the word is addressed. Why didn't He say, "I will make," but, "Let us make a man"? For you to know the supreme power; lest, while acknowledging the Father, thou shalt not reject the Son; that you may know that the Father created through the Son, and the Son created by the command of the Father; that you glorify the Father in the Son and the Son in the Holy Spirit. Thus you were born as a common creature to become a common worshiper of the One and the Other, not dividing in worship, but relating to the Deity as one. Pay attention to the outward course of history and to the deep inner meaning of Theology. And God created man. - Let's create! And it is not said: “And they created,” so that you would not have reason to fall into polytheism. If the person were plural in composition, then people would have reason to make many gods for themselves. Now the expression “let us make” is used so that you may know the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

“God created man” so that you recognize (understand) the unity of the Godhead, not the unity of Hypostases, but the unity in power, so that you glorify the one God, making no difference in worship and not falling into polytheism. After all, it does not say "the gods created man", but "God created". A special Person of the Father, a special - of the Son, a special - of the Holy Spirit. Why not three gods? Because the Divine is one. What Deity I contemplate in the Father, the same is in the Son, and what is in the Holy Spirit, the same is in the Son. Therefore the image (μορφη) is one in both, and the power that proceeds from the Father remains the same in the Son. As a result, our worship and also our praise are the same. The foreshadowing of our creation is true theology.”

Prot. Mikhail Pomazansky:

“There are many testimonies of the ancient fathers and teachers of the Church also that the Church from the first days of her existence performed baptism in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, as three Divine Persons, and denounced heretics who attempted to perform baptism or in the name of one Father, considering the Son and the Holy Spirit by lower forces, or in the name of the Father and the Son and even one Son, humiliating the Holy Spirit before them (testimonies of Justin Martyr, Tertullian, Irenaeus, Cyprian, Athanasius, Ilarius, Basil the Great and others).

However, the Church endured great disturbances and withstood a huge struggle in defending this dogma. The struggle was directed mainly on two points: first, to affirm the truth of the consubstantiality and equal honor of the Son of God with God the Father; then - to affirm the unity of the Holy Spirit with God the Father and the Son of God.

The dogmatic task of the Church in its ancient period was to find such exact words for the dogma, by which the dogma of the Holy Trinity is best protected from reinterpretation by heretics.

7. About the personal properties of Divine Persons

The personal, or Hypostatic, properties of the Most Holy Trinity are designated as follows: The Father is not born; Son - eternally born; The Holy Spirit comes from the Father.

Rev. John of Damascus expresses the idea of the incomprehensibility of the mystery of the Holy Trinity:

"Although we have been taught that there is a difference between generation and procession, but what is the difference and what is the generation of the Son and the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Father, we do not know this."

Prot. Mikhail Pomazansky:

“All sorts of dialectical considerations about what is birth and what is the procession are not capable of revealing the inner mystery of the Divine life. Arbitrary speculation can even lead to a distortion of Christian teaching. The expressions themselves: about the Son - "begotten of the Father" and about the Spirit - "proceeds from the Father" - represent an accurate rendering of the words of Holy Scripture. About the Son it is said: "only begotten" (John 1, 14; 3, 16, etc.); also - " from the womb before the right hand like dew your birth"(Ps. 109, 3);" You are my Son; I have now given birth to you"(Ps. 2, 7; the words of the psalm are quoted in Hebrews 1, 5 and 5, 5). The dogma of the procession of the Holy Spirit rests on the following direct and precise saying of the Savior: " When the Comforter comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, He will testify about Me"(John 15, 26). Based on the above sayings, the Son is usually spoken of in the past grammatical tense - "begotten", and the Spirit - in the grammatical present tense - "comes out." However, different grammatical forms of time do not indicate any relationship to time: both the birth and the procession are "eternal", "timeless". About the birth of the Son in theological terminology, the form of the present tense is sometimes used: "eternally born" from the Father; however, it is more common for holy fathers the expression of the Creed is "born".

The dogma of the birth of the Son from the Father and the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Father points to the mysterious internal relationships of the Persons in God, to the life of God in Himself. These eternal, eternal, timeless relationships must be clearly distinguished from the manifestations of the Holy Trinity in the created world, distinguished from providential actions and manifestations of God in the world, as they were expressed in the events of the creation of the world, the coming of the Son of God to earth, His incarnation and the sending down of the Holy Spirit. These providential phenomena and actions took place in time. In historical times, the Son of God was born from the Virgin Mary by the descent of the Holy Spirit upon Her: " The Holy Spirit will come upon You, and the power of the Most High will overshadow You; therefore, the holy being born will be called the Son of God"(Luke 1, 35). In historical time, the Holy Spirit descended on Jesus during His baptism from John. In historical time, the Holy Spirit was sent down by the Son from the Father, appearing in the form of fiery tongues. The Son comes to earth through the Holy Spirit; the Spirit is sent down Son, according to the promise: "" (John 15, 26).

To the question about the eternal birth of the Son and the procession of the Spirit: "When is this birth and procession?" St. Gregory the Theologian answers: "Before the very moment. You hear about birth: don't try to know what the image of birth is. You hear that the Spirit proceeds from the Father: don't try to know how it comes."

Although the meaning of the expressions: "birth" and "proceeding" is incomprehensible to us, however, this does not diminish the importance of these concepts in the Christian doctrine of God. They point to the perfect Divinity of the Second and Third Persons. The being of the Son and the Spirit rests inseparably in the very being of God the Father; hence the expression about the Son: from the womb... gave birth to You"(Ps. 109, 3), from the womb - from the being. Through the words "begotten" and "proceeds" the being of the Son and the Spirit is opposed to the being of all creatures, of everything that is created, that is caused by the will of God from non-existence. Being from the being of God can to be only Divine and Eternal.

What is born is always of the same essence as the one who gives birth, and what is created and created is of a different essence, lower, is external in relation to the creator.

Rev. John of Damascus:

“(We believe) in one Father, the beginning of all and the cause, not from anyone begotten, Who alone has no cause and is not begotten, the Creator of everything, but the Father, by nature, His one Only-Begotten Son, the Lord and God and Savior our Jesus Christ and into the bringer of the All-Holy Spirit. And into the one and only Son of God, our Lord, Jesus Christ, begotten of the Father before all ages, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, uncreated, consubstantial with the Father, through whom all things happened. Speaking of Him: before all ages, we show that His birth is timeless and without beginning; for the Son of God, the radiance of glory and the image of the Hypostasis of the Father (Heb. 1:3), living wisdom and power, the hypostatic Word, the essential, perfect and living image of the invisible God, was not brought into being from non-existent things; but He was always with the Father and in the Father, from whom He was born forever and without beginning. For the Father never existed when there was no Son, but together the Father, together also the Son, begotten of Him. For the Father without the Son would not be called the Father, if he had ever existed without the Son, he would not have been the Father, and if afterward he began to have the Son, then also afterward he became the Father, not having been the Father before, and would have undergone a change in that , not being the Father, became Him, and such a thought is more terrible than any blasphemy, for it cannot be said of God that He does not have the natural power of birth, and the power of birth consists in the ability to give birth from oneself, that is, from one’s own essence, a being, similar in nature.

So, it would be impious to say about the birth of the Son that it happened in time and that the existence of the Son began after the Father. For we confess the birth of the Son from the Father, that is, from His nature. And if we do not admit that the Son from the beginning existed together with the Father, from whom He was born, then we introduce a change in the hypostasis of the Father in that the Father, not being the Father, later became the Father. True, the creation came after, but not from the essence of God; but by the will and power of God it was brought from non-existence into existence, and therefore no change took place in the nature of God. For generation consists in this, that out of the essence of the one who gives birth, that which is similar in essence is produced; creation and creation consists in the fact that what is created and created comes from outside, and not from the essence of the creator and creator, and is completely unlike in nature.

Therefore, in God, Who alone is passionless, immutable, immutable and always the same, both birth and creation are passionless. For, being by nature impassive and devoid of flow, because simple and uncomplicated, He cannot be subject to suffering or flow either in birth or in creation, and has no need of anyone's assistance. But generation (in Him) is without beginning and eternal, since it is the action of His nature and proceeds from His being, otherwise the begetter would have undergone a change, and there would have been a first God and a subsequent God, and multiplication would have occurred. Creation with God, as an act of will, is not co-eternal with God. For what is brought from non-existence into being cannot be contemporaneous with the Beginningless and always Existing. God and man create differently. Man does not bring anything out of non-existent into being, but what he does, he does out of pre-existing matter, not only wishing, but also having first considered and imagined in his mind what he wants to do, then he already works with his hands, accepts labors, fatigue, and often does not reach the goal when hard work does not work out the way you want; But God, only having willed, brought everything out of non-existent into being: in the same way, God and man give birth not in the same way. God, being flightless and without beginning, and passionless, and free from flow, and incorporeal, and only one, and infinite, and gives birth without flight and without beginning, and without passion, and without flow, and without combination, and His incomprehensible birth has no beginning, no end. He gives birth without beginning, because He is unchangeable; - without expiration because it is passionless and incorporeal; - out of combination, because again it is incorporeal, and there is only one God, who does not need anyone else; - infinite and unceasing, because it is both flightless, and timeless, and infinite, and always the same, for what is without beginning is infinite, and what is infinite by grace is by no means without beginning, like, for example, the Angels.

So, the eternal God gives birth to His Word, perfect without beginning and without end, so that God, who has higher time and nature, and being, does not give birth in time. But man, obviously, gives birth in the opposite way, because he is subject to both birth, and decay, and outflow, and reproduction, and is clothed with a body, and in human nature there is a male and female sex, and the husband needs the allowance of his wife. But let him be merciful, who is above all things, and who transcends all thought and understanding.”

8. Naming the Second Person by the Word

Orthodox dogmatic theology:

“The naming of the Son of God by the Word, or Logos, which is often found among the holy fathers and in liturgical texts, has its basis in the first chapter of the Gospel of John the Theologian.

The concept, or the name of the Word in its exalted meaning, is repeatedly found in the Old Testament books. These are the expressions in the Psalms: Forever, O Lord, your word is established in heaven"(Ps. 118, 89);" He sent his word and healed them"(Ps. 106, 20 - a verse talking about the exodus of the Jews from Egypt);" By the word of the Lord the heavens were created, and by the spirit of his mouth all their host"(Ps. 32, 6). The author of the Wisdom of Solomon writes:" Your almighty Word descended from heaven from royal thrones into the middle of the perilous earth, like a formidable warrior. It carried a sharp sword - Your unchanging command, and, standing, filled everything with death, it touched the sky and walked the earth"(Wisdom 28, 15-16).

The Holy Fathers make an attempt with the help of this divine name to somewhat clarify the mystery of the relationship of the Son to the Father. St. Dionysius of Alexandria (a student of Origen) explains this attitude as follows: "Our thought spews out the word from itself according to what was said by the prophet:" A good word has poured out from my heart"(Ps. 44, 2). Thought and word are different from each other and occupy their own special and separate place: while the thought abides and moves in the heart, the word - in the tongue and in the mouth; however, they are inseparable and never for a minute are deprived of each other. Neither a thought exists without a word, nor a word without a thought ... in it having received being. Thought is, as it were, a hidden word inside, and a word is a thought that manifests itself. Thought passes into a word, and the word transfers the thought to the listeners, and thus Thus, through the medium of the word, thought takes root in the souls of those who listen, entering them together with the word. or it came from outside along with the thought, and penetrated from it itself. So the Father, the greatest and all-encompassing Thought, has a Son - the Word, His first Interpreter and Messenger "((quoted by St. Athanasius De sentent. Dionis., n. 15 )).

In the same way, the image of the relation of word to thought, is widely used by St. John of Kronstadt in his reflections on the Holy Trinity ("My life in Christ"). In the above quotation from St. Dionysius of Alexandria's reference to the Psalter shows that the thoughts of the Fathers of the Church were based on the use of the name "Word" in the Holy Scriptures not only of the New Testament, but also of the Old Testament. Thus, there is no reason to assert that the name Logos-Word was borrowed by Christianity from philosophy, as some Western interpreters do.

Of course, the Fathers of the Church, like the Apostle John the Theologian himself, did not pass by the concept of the Logos as it was interpreted in Greek philosophy and by the Jewish philosopher Philo of Alexandria (the concept of the Logos as a personal being mediating between God and the world, or as an impersonal divine force) and opposed their understanding of the Logos, the Christian doctrine of the Word - the Only Begotten Son of God, consubstantial with the Father and equally divine with the Father and the Spirit.

Rev. John of Damascus:

“So this one and only God is not without the Word. But if He has the Word, then He must have the Word not without hypostasis, which began to be and has to cease. For there was no time when God was without the Word. On the contrary, God always has His Word, which is born from Him and which is not like our word - non-hypostatic and spreading in the air, but is hypostatic, living, perfect, not outside of Him (God), but always in Him. For where can He be outside of God? But since our nature is temporary and easily destructible; then our word is not hypostatic. But God, as perpetual and perfect, and the Word will also have perfect and hypostatic, which always is, lives and has everything that the Parent has. Our word, originating from the mind, is neither completely identical with the mind, nor completely different; for, being of the mind, it is something else in relation to it; but since it reveals the mind, it is not completely different from the mind, but being one with it by nature, it differs from it as a special subject: so the Word of God, since it exists in itself, differs from the one from whom it has hypostasis; because it manifests in itself the same thing that is in God; then by nature there is one with him. For just as perfection in every respect is seen in the Father, so is the same seen in the Word born of Him.

St. rights. John of Kronstadt:

“Have you learned to foresee the Lord before you, outwardly, as the omnipresent Mind, as the living and active Word, as the life-giving Spirit? Holy Scripture is the realm of the Mind, Word and Spirit - the God of the Trinity: in it He manifests itself clearly: “verbs, even Az I have spoken to you, are spirit and life” (John 6, 63), said the Lord; the writings of the Holy Fathers - here again the expression of the Thought, Word and Spirit of the hypostatic, with a greater participation of the human spirit itself; the writings of ordinary secular people are a manifestation of the fallen human spirit, with its sinful attachments, habits, and passions. In the Word of God we see face to face God and ourselves as we are. Recognize yourself in it, people, and always walk in the presence of God.

St. Gregory Palamas:

“And since the perfect and all-perfect Goodness is the Mind, then what else could come from It, as from the Source, if not the Word? Moreover, It is not like our spoken word, because this word of ours is not only the action of the mind, but also the action of the body, set in motion by the mind. Neither is it like our inner word, which, as it were, possesses its inherent disposition towards the images of sounds. It is also impossible to compare Him with our mental word, although it is silently carried out by completely incorporeal movements; however, it needs intervals and considerable intervals of time in order, gradually starting from the mind, to become a perfect conclusion, being something imperfect from the beginning.

Rather, this Word can be compared to the innate word or knowledge of our mind, always coexisting with the mind, due to which it should be thought that we were brought into being by Him who made us in His image. Predominantly, this Awareness is inherent in the Highest Mind of all-perfect and super-perfect Goodness, in Whom there is nothing imperfect, for except for the fact that the Awareness comes from It, everything related to it is the same unchanging Goodness, like Itself. Therefore, the Son is and is called by us the Highest Word, so that we may know Him as Perfect in our own and perfect Hypostasis; for this Word is born from the Father and is in no way inferior to the Father's essence, but is completely identical with the Father, with the only exception of His being according to the Hypostasis, which shows that the Word is divinely born from the Father.

9. About the procession of the Holy Spirit

Orthodox dogmatic theology:

The ancient Orthodox doctrine of the personal properties of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is distorted in the Latin Church by the creation of the doctrine of the timeless, eternal procession of the Holy Spirit from the Father and the Son (Filioque). The expression that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son originates from Blessed Augustine, who, in the course of his theological discussions, found it possible to express it in some places in his writings, although in other places he confesses that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father. Having thus appeared in the West, it began to spread there around the seventh century; it was established there, as obligatory, in the ninth century. As early as the beginning of the 9th century, Pope Leo III - although he himself personally leaned towards this doctrine - forbade changing the text of the Nicene Constantinople Creed in favor of this doctrine, and for this he ordered the Creed to be drawn in its ancient Orthodox reading (i.e. . without Filioque) on two metal boards: on one - in Greek, and on the other - in Latin, - and exhibited in the Basilica of St. Peter with the inscription: "I, Leo, put it out of love for the Orthodox faith and for its protection." This was done by the pope after the Council of Aachen (which was in the ninth century, presided over by Emperor Charlemagne) in response to the request of that council that the pope declare the Filioque a general church doctrine.

Nevertheless, the newly created dogma continued to spread in the West, and when Latin missionaries came to the Bulgarians in the middle of the ninth century, the Filioque stood in their creed.

As relations between the papacy and the Orthodox East became more acute, the Latin dogma was more and more strengthened in the West and, finally, was recognized there as a universally binding dogma. Protestantism also inherited this teaching from the Roman Church.

The Latin dogma Filioque represents a significant and important deviation from Orthodox truth. He was subjected to detailed analysis and denunciation, especially by Patriarchs Photius and Michael Cerularius, as well as Bishop Mark of Ephesus, a participant in the Council of Florence. Adam Zernikav (XVIII century), who converted from Roman Catholicism to Orthodoxy, in his essay "On the Descent of the Holy Spirit" cites about a thousand testimonies from the writings of the holy fathers of the Church in favor of the Orthodox teaching about the Holy Spirit.

In modern times, the Roman Church, from "missionary" goals, obscures the difference (or rather, its essentiality) between Orthodox teaching about the Holy Spirit and Roman; to this end, the popes left for the Uniates and for the "Eastern rite" the ancient Orthodox text of the Creed, without the words "and from the Son." Such a device cannot be understood as a semi-repudiation of Rome from her dogma; at best, this is only a covert view of Rome, that the Orthodox East is backward in the sense of dogmatic development, and this backwardness must be treated with indulgence, and that dogma, expressed in the West in a developed form (explicite, according to the Roman theory of "development of dogmas"), hidden in the Orthodox dogma in an as yet undiscovered state (implicite). But in the Latin dogma, intended for internal use, we find a certain interpretation of the Orthodox dogma about the procession of the Holy Spirit as "heresy". In the Latin dogma of the doctor of theology A. Sanda, officially approved, we read: “The opponents (of this Roman teaching) are the Greek schismatics, who teach that the Holy Spirit comes from one Father. The symbol… Who was the ancestor of this heresy is unknown" (Sinopsis Theologie Dogmaticae specialist. Autore D-re A. Sanda. Volum. I).

Meanwhile, the Latin dogma is inconsistent neither with the Holy Scriptures nor with the Holy Tradition of the Church as a whole, it does not even agree with the most ancient tradition of the local Roman Church.

Roman theologians cite in his defense a number of places from the Holy Scriptures, where the Holy Spirit is called "Christ's", where it is said that He is given by the Son of God: from this they conclude that He proceeds from the Son.

(The most important of these places cited by Roman theologians: the words of the Savior to the disciples about the Holy Spirit the Comforter: " He will take from Mine and proclaim to you"(John 16, 14); the words of the Apostle Paul:" God sent the Spirit of His Son into your hearts"(Gal. 4, 6); the same Apostle" If anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not His."(Rom. 8, 9); John's Gospel:" He blew and said to them: receive the Holy Spirit"(John 20, 22)).

In the same way, Roman theologians find passages in the writings of the Holy Fathers of the Church where they often speak of the sending down of the Holy Spirit “through the Son,” and sometimes even of “proceeding through the Son.”

However, no one can close the absolutely definite words of the Savior with any reasoning: " Comforter whom I will send to you from the Father"(John 15, 26) - and next - other words:" The Spirit of truth, which proceeds from the Father"(John 15, 26). The Holy Fathers of the Church could not put anything else into the words "through the Son", as soon as what is contained in Holy Scripture.

AT this case Roman Catholic theologians confuse two dogmas: the dogma of the personal existence of Hypostases and the dogma of consubstantiality, directly connected with it, but special. That the Holy Spirit is consubstantial with the Father and the Son, that therefore He is the Spirit of the Father and the Son, is an indisputable Christian truth, for God is a Trinity consubstantial and indivisible.

Blessed Theodoret clearly expresses this idea: “It is said about the Holy Spirit that He does not come from the Son or through the Son, but that He proceeds from the Father, is peculiar to the Son, as being called consubstantial with Him” (Blessed Theodoret. About the Third Ecumenical Council) .

And in Orthodox worship we often hear words addressed to the Lord Jesus Christ: "By Your Holy Spirit enlighten us, instruct us, save us…” The expression “The Spirit of the Father and the Son” is also Orthodox in itself. But these expressions refer to the dogma of consubstantiality, and it must be distinguished from another dogma, the dogma of birth and procession, which indicates, according to the expression of the holy fathers , the existential Cause of the Son and the Spirit. All the Eastern Fathers admit that the Father is monos - the only Cause of the Son and the Spirit. Therefore, when some Church Fathers use the expression "through the Son", it is precisely with this expression that they protect the dogma of the procession from the Father and the inviolability the dogmatic formula “he proceeds from the Father.” The Fathers speak of the Son as “through,” in order to protect the expression “from,” which refers only to the Father.

To this it should also be added that the expression “through the Son” found in some holy fathers in most cases definitely refers to the manifestations of the Holy Spirit in the world, that is, to the providential actions of the Holy Trinity, and not to the life of God in Himself. When the Eastern Church first noticed the distortion of the dogma about the Holy Spirit in the West and began to reproach Western theologians for their innovations, St. Maximus the Confessor (in the 7th century), wishing to protect the Westerners, justified them by saying that they mean by the words "from the Son" to indicate that the Holy Spirit "through the Son is given to creatures, appears, is sent", but not that the Holy Spirit has being from Him. St. himself Maximus the Confessor strictly adhered to the teaching of the Eastern Church about the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Father and wrote a special treatise on this dogma.

The providential sending of the Spirit by the Son of God is spoken of in the words: I will send him to you from the Father"(John 15, 26). So we pray: "Lord, even Thy Most Holy Spirit at the third hour sent down to Thy apostles, that, O Good One, do not take away from us, but renew in us who pray to Thee."

By confusing the texts of Holy Scripture that speak of "origination" and "sending down", Roman theologians transfer the concept of providential relations to the very depths of the existential relations of the Persons of the Holy Trinity.

By introducing a new dogma, the Roman Church, except for the dogmatic side, violated the decree of the Third and subsequent Councils (Fourth - Seventh Councils), which forbids making any changes to the Nicene Creed after the Second Ecumenical Council gave it its final form. Thus, she also committed a sharp canonical offense.

When the Roman theologians try to suggest that the whole difference between Roman Catholicism and Orthodoxy in the doctrine of the Holy Spirit is that the former teaches about the procession "and from the Son", and the second - "through the Son", then in such a statement lies at least a misunderstanding (although sometimes our church writers, following the Catholic ones, allow themselves to repeat this idea): for the expression "through the Son" does not constitute a dogma of the Orthodox Church at all, but is only an explanatory device of some holy fathers in the doctrine of the Holy Trinity; the very meaning of the teachings of the Orthodox Church and the Roman Catholic Church are essentially different.

10. Consubstantial, equal divinity and equal honor of the Persons of the Holy Trinity

The three Hypostases of the Holy Trinity have the same essence, each of the Hypostases has the fullness of divinity, boundless and immeasurable; the three Hypostases are equal in honor and worship equally.

As for the fullness of the divinity of the First Person of the Holy Trinity, there were no heretics who rejected or belittled it in the history of the Christian Church. However, deviations from the truly Christian teaching about God the Father are encountered. Thus, in antiquity, under the influence of the Gnostics, invaded - and in later times, under the influence of the so-called idealistic philosophy of the first half of XIX century (mainly Schelling) arose again - the doctrine of God as the Absolute, God, estranged from everything limited, finite (the word "absolute" itself means "detached") and therefore not having a direct connection with the world, in need of a Mediator; thus, the concept of the Absolute came close to the name of God the Father and the concept of the Mediator with the name of the Son of God. Such an idea is completely inconsistent with the Christian understanding, with the teaching of the word of God. The Word of God teaches us that God is close to the world, that "God is Love" (1 John 4:8; 4:16), that God - God the Father - so loved the world that He gave His Only Begotten Son, so that everyone who believes in Him had eternal life; God the Father, inseparable from the Son and the Spirit, belongs to the creation of the world and the unceasing providence for the world. If in the word of God the Son is called the Mediator, it is because the Son of God took upon Himself human nature, became the God-man and united the Divinity with humanity, united the earthly with the heavenly, but not at all because the Son is supposedly the necessary connecting principle between the infinitely distant from the world by God the Father and the created finite world.

In the history of the Church, the main dogmatic work of the Holy Fathers was aimed at affirming the truth of consubstantiality, the fullness of divinity and the equal honor of the Second and Third Hypostases of the Holy Trinity.

11. Consubstantial, equal divinity and equal honor of God the Son with God the Father

Rev. John of Damascus writes about the consubstantiality and equality of God the Son with God the Father:

But if we say that the Father is the beginning of the Son and greater than Him (John 14:28), then we do not show by this that He takes precedence over the Son in terms of time or nature; for through him the Father made the world (Heb. 1:2). It does not excel in any other respect, if not in respect of the cause; that is, because the Son was born from the Father, and not the Father from the Son, because the Father is the author of the Son by nature, just as we do not say that fire comes from light, but, on the contrary, light from fire. Therefore, when we hear that the Father is the beginning and greater than the Son, we must understand the Father as the cause. And just as we do not say that fire is of one essence, and light is of another, so it is impossible to say that the Father is of one essence, and the Son is different, but (both) are one and the same. And how we say that fire shines through the light that comes out of it, and we do not suppose that the light coming from fire is its service organ, but, on the contrary, is its natural force; so we speak of the Father, that everything that the Father does, he does through His Only Begotten Son, not as through a service tool, but as through a natural and hypostatic Power; and just as we say that fire illuminates and again we say that the light of fire illuminates, so everything that the Father does, the Son also does (John 5:19). But light has no hypostasis special from fire; The Son is a perfect hypostasis, inseparable from the hypostasis of the Father, as we have shown above.

Prot. Michael Pomazansky (Orthodox dogmatic theology):

In the early Christian period, until the faith of the Church in the consubstantial and equality of the Persons of the Holy Trinity was precisely formulated in strictly defined terms, it happened that even those church writers who carefully guarded their agreement with the universal Church consciousness and had no intention of violating it by any with their personal views, they sometimes allowed, next to clear Orthodox thoughts, expressions about the Divinity of the Persons of the Holy Trinity that were not quite accurate, did not clearly affirm the equality of the Persons.

This was explained mainly by the fact that the pastors of the Church invested in one and the same term - one content, others - another. The concept of "being" in Greek was expressed by the word usia, and this term was understood by everyone, in general, the same way. As for the concept of "Person", it was expressed in different words: ipostasis, prosopon. The various uses of the word "hypostasis" were confusing. By this term, some denoted the "Person" of the Holy Trinity, others the "Being". This circumstance hindered mutual understanding until, at the suggestion of St. Athanasius, it was not decided to understand definitely by the word "hypostasis" - "Person".

But besides this, in the ancient Christian period there were heretics who deliberately rejected or belittled the Divinity of the Son of God. Heresies of this kind were numerous and at times produced great disturbances in the Church. These were, in particular, the heretics:

In the age of the apostles - the Ebionites (named after the heretic Ebion); early holy fathers testify that against them St. Evangelist John the Theologian wrote his Gospel;

In the third century, Paul of Samosata, denounced by two councils of Antioch, in the same century.

But the most dangerous of all heretics was - in the 4th century - Arius, presbyter of Alexandria. Arius taught that the Word, or the Son of God, received its beginning of being in time, though before everything else; that He was created by God, although later God created everything through Him; that He is called the Son of God only as the most perfect of created spirits and has a nature other than the Father, not Divine.

This heretical teaching of Arius excited the whole Christian world, as it captivated so many. The First Ecumenical Council was convened against him in the year 325, and at it 318 primates of the Church unanimously expressed the ancient teaching of Orthodoxy and condemned the false teaching of Arius. The Council solemnly pronounced an anathema on those who say that there was a time when the Son of God did not exist, on those who claim that He was created or that He is of a different essence than God the Father. The Council drew up the Creed, which was subsequently confirmed and supplemented at the Second Ecumenical Council. The unity and equality of the Son of God with God the Father was expressed by the Council in the Symbol of Faith with the words: "consubstantial with the Father."

The Arian heresy after the Council broke into three branches and continued to exist for several decades. It was subjected to further refutation, its details were reported at several local councils and in the writings of the great fathers of the Church of the 4th century, and partly of the 5th century (Athanasius the Great, Basil the Great, Gregory the Theologian, John Chrysostom, Gregory of Nyssa, Epiphanius, Ambrose of Milan, Cyril Alexandria and others). However, the spirit of this heresy later found a place for itself in various false teachings, both of the Middle Ages and of modern times.

The Fathers of the Church, answering the arguments of the Arians, did not disregard any of those passages of Holy Scripture to which the heretics referred in order to justify their idea of the inequality of the Son with the Father. In the group of sayings of Holy Scripture, speaking, as it were, about the inequality of the Son with the Father, one must keep in mind the following: a) that the Lord Jesus Christ is not only God, but became a Man, and such sayings can refer to His humanity; b) that, moreover, He, as our Redeemer, was in the days of His earthly life in a state of voluntary humiliation, " humbled himself, being obedient even unto death"(Phil. 2, 7-8); therefore, even when the Lord speaks of His Divinity, He, as sent by the Father, as having come to fulfill the will of the Father on earth, places Himself in obedience to the Father, being consubstantial and equal to Him, as The Son, giving us an example of obedience, this subordinate relation refers not to the Essence (usia) of the Deity, but to the action of the Persons in the world: the Father is the one who sends, the Son is the one who is sent, This is the obedience of love.

Such is the meaning, in particular, of the words of the Savior in the Gospel of John: " My Father is greater than Me"(John 14, 28). It should be noted that they were said to the disciples in a farewell conversation after words expressing the idea of the fullness of Divinity and the unity of the Son with the Father -" Whoever loves Me will keep My word: and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our abode with him."(John 14, 23). In these words, the Savior combines the Father and Himself in one word" We "and speaks equally on behalf of the Father and on His own; but as sent by the Father into the world (John 14, 24), He places Himself in a subordinate relation to the Father (John 14:28).

When the Lord said: But no one knows about that day or hour, neither the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father ts" (Mk. 13, 32), - said about Himself in a state of voluntary humiliation; leading according to the Divinity, He humbled Himself to the point of ignorance according to humanity. St. Gregory the Theologian interprets these words in a similar way.

When the Lord said: My Father! If possible, let this cup pass from me; however, not as I want, but as You"(Matt. 26, 39), - showed in Himself the human weakness of the flesh, however, coordinated His human will with His Divine will, which is one with the will of the Father (blessed Theophylact). This truth is expressed in the words of the Eucharistic canon of the liturgy of St. John Chrysostom about the Lamb - the Son of God, "who has come, and having fulfilled everything about us, at night, betraying himself in the nude, moreover, betraying Himself for the life of the world."

When the Lord called on the cross: My God, My God! Why did you leave me?"(Matt. 27, 46), - he called out on behalf of all mankind. He came into the world in order to suffer with mankind its guilt and its estrangement from God, its abandonment by God, for, as the prophet Isaiah says, He "sins He wears ours and suffers for us" (Isaiah 53:5-6). This is how St. Gregory the Theologian explains these words of the Lord.

When, departing to heaven after His resurrection, the Lord said to His disciples: I ascend to my Father and your Father, and to my God and your God"(John 20, 17), - he did not speak in the same sense about His relationship to the Father and about their relationship to the Heavenly Father. Therefore, he said separately: not "our" Father, but " My Father and your Father". God the Father is His Father by nature, and ours is by grace (St. John of Damascus). The Savior's words contain the idea that the Heavenly Father has now become closer to us, that His Heavenly Father has now become our Father - and we are His children - by grace. This is accomplished by earthly life, death on the cross and the resurrection of Christ." See what kind of love the Father has given us so that we can be called and be children of God", - writes the Apostle John (1 Jn. 3, 1). After the completion of the work of our adoption by God, the Lord ascends to the Father as the God-man, i.e. not only in His Divinity, but also in Humanity, and, being of one nature with us , appends the words: " to my God and your God", suggesting that He is forever united with us by His Humanity.

A detailed discussion of these and similar passages of Holy Scripture is found in St. Athanasius the Great (in words against the Arians), at St. Basil the Great (in book IV against Eunomius), at St. Gregory the Theologian and others who wrote against the Arians.

But if there are such implicit expressions in the Holy Scriptures about Jesus Christ, then there are numerous, and one could say - innumerable, places that testify to the Divinity of the Lord Jesus Christ. The Gospel taken as a whole bears witness to Him. Of the individual places, we will indicate only a few, the most important. Some of them say that the Son of God is the true God. Others - that He is equal to the Father. Still others, that He is consubstantial with the Father.

It must be remembered that calling the Lord Jesus Christ God (Theos) in itself speaks of the fullness of the Godhead. "God" cannot be (from the point of view of the logical, philosophical) - "second degree", "lower level", God is limited. The properties of the Divine nature are not subject to conditionality, change, reduction. If "God", then wholly, not partially. The Apostle Paul points to this when he says of the Son that " For in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily"(Col. 2, 9). That the Son of God is the True God, says:

a) direct naming of Him as God in the Holy Scriptures:

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. It was in the beginning with God. Everything came into being through Him, and without Him nothing came into being that came into being."(John 1, 1-3).

"The Great Piety Mystery: God Appeared in the Flesh"(1 Tim. 3, 16).

"We also know that the Son of God has come and given us (light and) understanding, so that we may know the true (God) and be in His true Son Jesus Christ: this is the true God and eternal life.(1 John 5:20).

"Their fathers, and from them Christ according to the flesh, who is over all God, blessed forever, amen"(Rom. 9, 5).

"My Lord and my God!"- the exclamation of the Apostle Thomas (John 20, 28).

"Take heed therefore to yourselves and to all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to shepherd the church of the Lord and God, which He purchased with His own blood."(Acts 20, 28).

"We lived piously in this present age, waiting for the blessed hope and the appearance of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ."(Tit. 2:12-13). That the name "great God" belongs here to Jesus Christ, we verify this from the construction of speech in Greek (a common term for the words "God and the Savior") and from the context of this chapter.

c) calling Him "the Only Begotten":

"And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten from the Father"(John 1, 14,18).

"For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life"(John 3, 16).

On the equality of the Son with the Father:

"My Father is doing to this day, and I am doing"(John 5, 17).

"For whatever He does, the Son also does" (John 5:19).

"For just as the Father raises the dead and gives life, so the Son gives life to whomever He wills."(John 5, 21).

"For just as the Father has life in Himself, so He gave to the Son to have life in Himself."(John 5, 26).

"That all should honor the Son as they honor the Father"(John 5, 23).

On the consubstantiality of the Son with the Father:

"I and the Father are one" (John 10:30): en esmen - consubstantial.

"I am in the Father and the Father is in me"(is) (John 24, 11; 10, 38).

"And all mine is yours, and yours is mine"(John 17, 10).

The Word of God also speaks of the eternity of the Son of God:

"I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, says the Lord, who is, and was, and is to come, the Almighty"(Rev. 1, 8).

"And now glorify me, O Father, from your own self with the glory that I had with you before the world was."(John 17, 5).

About His omnipresence:

"No one ascended to heaven but the Son of Man, who descended from heaven, who is in heaven."(John 3:13).

"For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I in the midst of them."(Mt. 18, 20).

About the Son of God as the Creator of the world:

"Everything came into being through Him, and without Him nothing came into being that came into being."(John 1, 3).

"For by Him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers, all things were created by Him and for Him; And He is above all, and everything costs Him"(Col. 1, 16-17).

Likewise, the word of God speaks of other divine attributes of the Lord Jesus Christ.

As for Sacred Tradition, it contains quite clear evidence of the universal faith of Christians of the first centuries in the true Divinity of the Lord Jesus Christ. We see the universality of this faith:

From the Creeds, used in every local church even before the Council of Nicaea;

From confessions of faith drawn up at Councils or on behalf of the Council of Pastors of the Church before the 4th century;

From the writings of the apostolic men and teachers of the Church of the first centuries;

From the written testimonies of persons external to Christianity, reporting that Christians worship "Christ as God" (for example, a letter from Pliny the Younger to the Emperor Trojan; testimonies of the enemy of Christians, the writer Celsus and others).

12. Consubstantial, equal divinity and equal honor of the Holy Spirit with God the Father and the Son of God

In the history of the ancient Church, heretics' belittling of the divine dignity of the Son of God was usually accompanied by heretics' belittling of the dignity of the Holy Spirit.

In the second century, the heretic Valentinus falsely taught about the Holy Spirit, who said that the Holy Spirit does not differ in His nature from angels. So did the Arians. But the head of the heretics who distorted apostolic teaching about the Holy Spirit, there was Macedonius, who occupied the archiepiscopal see of Constantinople in the 4th century, who found followers among the former Arians and semi-Arians. He called the Holy Spirit the creation of the Son, serving the Father and the Son. The accusers of his heresy were the Church Fathers: Saints Basil the Great, Gregory the Theologian, Athanasius the Great, Gregory of Nyssa, Ambrose, Amphilochius, Diodorus of Tarsus and others who wrote essays against heretics. The false doctrine of Macedonia was refuted first at a number of local councils and, finally, at the Second Ecumenical Council of Constantinople (381 years). The Second Ecumenical Council, in order to protect Orthodoxy, supplemented the Nicene Creed with the words: "(We believe) in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the Life-Giving One, who proceeds from the Father, Who with the Father and the Son is worshiped and glorified, who spoke the prophets," - as well as by further members included in the Nicene Constantinople Creed.

Of the many testimonies about the Holy Spirit available in Holy Scripture, it is especially important to keep in mind such passages that a) confirm the teaching of the Church that the Holy Spirit is not an impersonal Divine power, but the Person of the Holy Trinity, and b) affirm His consubstantial and equal Divine dignity with the first and second Persons of the Holy Trinity.

A) Evidence of the first kind - that the Holy Spirit is the bearer of the personal principle, includes the words of the Lord in a farewell conversation with the disciples, where the Lord calls the Holy Spirit the "Comforter", who "will come", "teach", "convict": " When the Comforter comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, He will testify of Me"(John 15, 26)..." And He, having come, will convict the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment. About the sin that they do not believe in Me; Of righteousness, that I am going to my Father, and you will see me no more; About the judgment, that the prince of this world is condemned"(John 16, 8-11).

The Apostle Paul clearly speaks of the Spirit as a Person when, discussing various gifts from the Holy Spirit - the gifts of wisdom, knowledge, faith, healings, miracles, discernment of spirits, different languages, interpretation of different languages, he concludes: " Yet it is produced by the same Spirit, dividing to each one individually as He pleases."(1 Cor. 12, 11).

B) The words of the Apostle Peter, addressed to Ananias, who concealed the price of his estate, speak of the Spirit as God: " Why did you allow Satan to put into your heart the thought of lying to the Holy Spirit… You lied not to people, but to God"(Acts 5, 3-4).

The equal honor and consubstantiality of the Spirit with the Father and the Son are evidenced by such passages as:

"baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit"(Matt. 28, 19),

"The grace of the Lord (our) Jesus Christ, and the love of God (Father), and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit with you all"(2 Cor. 13, 13):

Here all three Persons of the Holy Trinity are called equally. The Savior Himself expressed the divine dignity of the Holy Spirit in the following words: If anyone speaks a word against the Son of Man, he will be forgiven; but if anyone speaks against the Holy Spirit, he will not be forgiven either in this age or in the future"(Matt. 12, 32).

13. Images explaining the mystery of the Holy Trinity

Prot. Mikhail Pomazansky:

“Wishing to bring the mystery of the Holy Trinity closer at least somewhat to our earthly concepts, the incomprehensible to the comprehensible, the Church Fathers resorted to similarities from nature, which are: a) the sun, its ray and light; b) root, trunk and fruit of a tree; c) a spring gushing out of it a key and a stream; d) three candles burning one at the other, giving one indivisible light; e) fire, shine from it and warmth from it; f) mind, will and memory; g) consciousness, subconsciousness and desire and the like.”

The life of St. Cyril, the Enlightener of the Slavs, tells how he explained the mystery of the Holy Trinity:

“Then the Saracen sages asked Constantine:

Why do you, Christians, divide One God into three: you call the Father, the Son and the Spirit. If God can have a Son, then give Him a wife, so that there are many gods?

Do not blaspheme the Most Divine Trinity, - answered the Christian philosopher, - Which we have learned to confess from the ancient prophets, whom you also recognize as circumcisions holding together with them. They teach us that the Father, the Son and the Spirit are three hypostases, but their essence is one. Similarity to this can be seen in the sky. So in the sun, created by God in the image of the Holy Trinity, there are three things: a circle, a bright ray and warmth. In the Holy Trinity, the solar circle is the likeness of God the Father. Just as a circle has neither beginning nor end, so God is without beginning and without end. Just as a bright ray and solar warmth come from the circle of the sun, so the Son is born from God the Father and the Holy Spirit proceeds. Thus, the solar ray that enlightens the entire universe is the likeness of God the Son, born of the Father and manifested in this world, while the solar warmth emanating from the same solar circle along with the ray is the likeness of God the Holy Spirit, who, together with the begotten Son, is eternally comes from the Father, although in time it is sent to people and the Son! [Those. for the sake of Christ's merits on the cross: "for the Holy Spirit was not yet upon them, because Jesus was not yet glorified" (John 7:39)], as for example. was sent to the apostles in the form of fiery tongues. And as the sun, consisting of three objects: a circle, a bright ray and heat, is not divided into three suns, although each of these objects has its own characteristics, one is a circle, the other is a ray, the third is heat, but not three suns, but one, so is the Most Holy Trinity, although it has Three Persons: the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, however, it is not divided by the Deity into three gods, but there is One God. Do you remember how the Scripture says about how God appeared to the forefather Abraham at the Maurian oak, from which you keep circumcision? God appeared to Abraham in Three Persons. “He (Abraham) lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, three men stood against him, seeing, he ran towards them from the entrance to the tent and bowed to the ground. And he said: Lord! If I have found favor with You, do not pass by Your servant "(Gen.18, 2-3).

Pay attention: Abraham sees before him Three Husbands, and he converses as if with One, saying: "Lord! If I have found favor before You." Obviously, the holy forefather confessed in the Three Persons of One God.

To clarify the mystery of the Holy Trinity, the holy fathers also pointed to a person who is the image of God.

Saint Ignatius Brianchaninov teaches:

"Our mind is the image of the Father; our word (the unspoken word we usually call thought) is the image of the Son; the spirit is the image of the Holy Spirit. being, not mixing with each other, not merging into one person, not dividing into three beings.Our mind gave birth and does not cease to give birth to a thought, a thought, having been born, does not cease to be born again and at the same time remains born, hidden in the mind. can not exist, and thought without mind. The beginning of one is certainly the beginning of another; the existence of mind is necessarily the existence of thought. In the same way, our spirit proceeds from the mind and contributes to thought. That is why every thought has its own spirit, every way of thinking has its separate spirit, every book has its own spirit. There can be no thought without a spirit, the existence of one is necessarily accompanied by the existence of the other. In the existence of both is the existence of the mind. "

St. rights. John of Kronstadt:

“We sin in thought, word and deed. In order to become pure images of the Most Holy Trinity, we must strive for the holiness of our thoughts, words, and deeds. Thought corresponds in God to the Father, words to the Son, deeds to the all-performing Holy Spirit. Sins of thought in a Christian are an important matter, because all our pleasing to God is, according to St. Macarius of Egypt, in thoughts: for thoughts are the beginning, words and activity come from them, - words, because they either give grace to those who hear, or are rotten words and serve as a stumbling block for others, corrupt the thoughts and hearts of others; matters all the more, because examples have the strongest effect on people, captivating them to imitate them.

“Just as in God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are inseparable, so in prayer and in our life, thought, word, and deed must also be inseparable. If you ask anything from God, believe that it will be done according to your request, as God wills; when you read the word of God, believe that everything it says was, is, and will be, or has been, is being done, and will be done. So believe, so speak, so read, so pray. Great thing word. A great thing is the soul that thinks, speaks and acts, the image and likeness of the almighty Trinity. Human! know yourself, who you are, and behave according to your dignity.

14. The incomprehensibility of the mystery of the Holy Trinity

The images offered by the holy fathers help us to come closer to understanding the mystery of the Holy Trinity, but we must not forget that they are not complete and cannot explain it to us. Here's what he says about these attempts at similarity Saint Gregory the Theologian:

“Whatever I considered with myself in my inquisitive mind, with which I enriched my mind, wherever I looked for similarities for this sacrament, I did not find anything to which the earthly (earthly) nature of God could be likened. , then much more escapes, leaving me below along with what is chosen for comparison.Following the example of others, I imagined a spring, a key and a stream and reasoned: do not the Father have similarities with one, the Son with another, the Holy Spirit with the third? For spring, spring, and stream are inseparable by time, and their coexistence is uninterrupted, although it seems that they are separated by three properties. such similarity does not introduce even numerical unity. For the spring, the key, and the stream, in relation to number, are one, but they are different only in the way they are represented. Again, he took into consideration the sun, ray, and light. oh, any difficulty seen in the sun and in that which is from the sun. Secondly, by ascribing essence to the Father, not to deprive the other Persons of the same independent essence and not to make them the powers of God, who exist in the Father, but would not be independent. Because the ray and light are not the sun, but some solar outpourings and essential qualities of the sun. Thirdly, in order not to ascribe to God both being and non-being (to what conclusion can this example lead); and that would be even more absurd than what was said before ... And in general I don’t find anything that, when considering, would stop the thought on the chosen similarities, unless someone with due prudence takes one thing from the image and discards everything else. Finally, I concluded that it is best to depart from all images and shadows, as deceptive and far from reaching the truth, but to stick to a more pious way of thinking, stopping at a few sayings, to have the Spirit as the guide, and what kind of illumination is received from Him, then, preserving until end, with Him, as with a sincere accomplice and interlocutor, to pass the present age, and to the best of our ability to convince others to worship the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, the one Godhead and the one Power.

Bishop Alexander (Mileant):

“All these and other similarities, while somewhat facilitating the assimilation of the mystery of the Trinity, are, however, only the faintest allusions to the nature of the Highest Being. They leave behind a consciousness of insufficiency, of inconsistency with that lofty subject for the understanding of which they are used. They cannot remove from the teaching about the Triune God that veil of incomprehensibility, mystery, with which this teaching is clothed for the human mind.

In this regard, one instructive story has been preserved about the famous Western teacher of the Church - Blessed Augustine. Immersed one day in thoughts about the mystery of the Trinity and drawing up a plan for an essay on this subject, he went to the seashore. There he saw the boy, playing in the sand, digging a hole. Approaching the boy, Augustine asked him: “What are you doing?” - "I want to pour the sea into this hole," the boy replied, smiling. Then Augustine understood: “Am I not doing the same thing as this child when I try to exhaust the sea of God’s infinity with my mind?”

In the same way, that great ecumenical hierarch, who, for his ability to penetrate in thought to the deepest mysteries of faith, is honored by the Church with the name of the Theologian, wrote to himself that he speaks of the Trinity more often than breathes, and he admits the unsatisfactoryness of all likenings aimed understanding of the dogma of the Trinity. “Whatever I considered with my inquisitive mind,” he says, “whatever I enriched the mind, wherever I looked for similarities for this, I did not find to which the natural nature of God could be applied.”

So, the doctrine of the Holy Trinity is the deepest, incomprehensible mystery of faith. All efforts to make it understandable, to introduce it into the usual framework of our thinking, are in vain. “Here is the limit of that,” remarks St. Athanasius the Great, - “what cherubs cover with wings””.

St. Philaret of Moscow answering the question “is it possible to comprehend the trinity of God?” - writes:

“God is one in three persons. We do not comprehend this inner mystery of the Godhead, but we believe in it according to the immutable testimony of the word of God: “No one knows God except the Spirit of God” (1 Cor. 2, 11).

Rev. John of Damascus:

“It is impossible for an image to be found among creatures that in everything similarly shows in itself the properties of the Holy Trinity. For what is created and complex, fleeting and changeable, describable and having an image and perishable - how exactly will the pre-essential Divine essence, which is alien to all this, be explained? And it is known that every creature is subject to the majority of such properties and, by its very nature, is subject to decay.

“For the Word there must be breath; for even our word is not without breath. But our breath is different from our being: it is the inhalation and exhalation of air drawn in and out for the existence of the body. When a word is pronounced, it becomes a sound that reveals the power of the word. And in God's nature, simple and uncomplicated, we must piously confess the existence of the Spirit of God, because His Word is not less than our word; but it would be impious to think that in God the Spirit is something that comes from outside, as it happens in us, complex beings. On the contrary, as when we hear about the Word of God, we do not recognize Him as without hypostasis or such as is acquired by teaching, pronounced with a voice, spreads in the air and disappears, but such as exists hypostatically, has free will, actively and omnipotently: thus, having learned that the Spirit God accompanies the Word and manifests His action, we do not honor Him with non-hypostatic breath; for in this way we would humiliate to insignificance the greatness of the Divine nature, if we had the same understanding about the Spirit that is in Him, which we have about our spirit; but we honor Him by a power that really exists, contemplated in its own and special personal being, proceeding from the Father, resting in the Word and manifesting Him, which therefore cannot be separated either from God, in whom it is, nor from the Word, with whom it accompanies, and which does not appear in such a way as to disappear, but, like the Word, exists personally, lives, has a free will, moves by itself, is active, always wants the good, in every will accompanies the will with force and has neither beginning nor end; for neither the Father was ever without the Word, nor the Word without the Spirit.

Thus, the polytheism of the Greeks is completely refuted by the unity of nature, and the teaching of the Jews is rejected by the acceptance of the Word and the Spirit; and from both remains what is useful, that is, from the teachings of the Jews - the unity of nature, and from Hellenism - one difference in hypostases.

If a Jew begins to contradict the acceptance of the Word and the Spirit, then he must rebuke him and stop his mouth with the Divine Scripture. For the Divine David says of the Word: Forever, O Lord, Thy Word abides in heaven (Ps. 119:89), and in another place: I sent forth Thy Word, and heal me (Ps. 106:20); - but the word spoken by the mouth is not sent and does not abide forever. And about the Spirit the same David says: Follow thy Spirit, and they shall be built up (Ps. 103:30); and in another place: By the word of the Lord the heavens were established, and by the Spirit of his mouth all their strength (Ps. 32, 6); also Job: the Spirit of God that created me, but the breath of the Almighty teaches me (Job 33:4); - but the Spirit that is sent, creating, affirming and preserving is not a breath that disappears, just as the mouth of God is not a member of the body: but one and the other must be understood in a godly manner.

Prot. Seraphim Slobodskoy:

“The great mystery that God revealed to us about Himself - the mystery of the Holy Trinity, our weak mind cannot comprehend, understand.

…St. Augustine He speaks:

"You see the Trinity if you see love." This means that the mystery of the Most Holy Trinity can be understood with the heart, that is, with love, rather than with our feeble mind.”

15. The dogma of trinity indicates the fullness of the mysterious inner life in God: God is Love

Orthodox dogmatic theology:

“The dogma of trinity points to the fullness of the mysterious inner life in God, for “God is love” (1 John 4:8; 4:16), and the love of God cannot only extend to the world created by God: in the Holy Trinity it is also turned inward Divine life.

Even more clearly for us, the dogma of trinity points to the proximity of God to the world: God is above us, God is with us, God is in us and in all creation. Above us is God the Father, the ever-flowing Source, according to the expression of the church prayer, the Foundation of all being, the Father of bounty, who loves us and cares for us, His creation, we are His children by grace. With us is God the Son, His birth, for the sake of Divine love, who revealed Himself to people as a Man, so that we know and see with our own eyes that God is with us, "sincerely", i.e. in the most perfect way "participated in us" (Heb. 2:14).

In us and in all creation - by His power and grace - the Holy Spirit, Who fulfills everything, Giver of life, Life-giving, Comforter, Treasure and Source of blessings.

St. Gregory Palamas:

“The Spirit of the Highest Word is, as it were, a kind of inexpressible Love of the Parent for the inexpressibly born Word Itself. The Beloved Son Himself and the Word of the Father use the same Love, having it in relation to the Parent, as having come together with Him from the Father and unitedly resting in Himself. From this Word, who communicates with us through His flesh, we are taught about the name of the Spirit, which differs in hypostatic existence from the Father, and also about the fact that He is not only the Spirit of the Father, but also the Spirit of the Son. For He says: “The Spirit of truth, which proceeds from the Father” (John 15:26), so that we may know not only the Word, but also the Spirit, which is from the Father, not begotten, but proceeding: He is also the Spirit of the Son who has Him from the Father as the Spirit of Truth, Wisdom and Word. For Truth and Wisdom is the Word, corresponding to the Parent and rejoicing with the Father, according to what He said through Solomon: "I was and rejoiced with Him." He did not say “rejoiced,” but precisely “rejoiced,” because the eternal Joy of the Father and the Son is the Holy Spirit as common to Both, according to the saying of Holy Scripture.

That is why the Holy Spirit is sent by both to worthy people, having being from the Father alone and proceeding from Him alone in being. The image of this Highest Love also has our mind, created in the image of God, [feeding it] to the knowledge, from Him and in Him constantly abiding; and this love is from Him and in Him, proceeding from Him together with the inner Word. And this insatiable desire of people for knowledge is a clear evidence of such love even for those who are not able to comprehend the innermost depths of themselves. But in that Archetype, in that all-perfect and super-perfect Goodness, in which there is nothing imperfect, except for what comes from It, Divine Love is fully Goodness Itself. Therefore, this Love is the Holy Spirit and another Comforter (John 14:16), and so it is called by us, since He accompanies the Word, so that we may know that the Holy Spirit, being perfect in a perfect and own Hypostasis, is in no way inferior to the essence of the Father. , but invariably identical in nature to the Son and the Father, differing from Them in Hypostasis and presenting to us His divine procession from the Father.

Ep. Alexander Mileant:

“However, for all its incomprehensibility, the doctrine of the Holy Trinity has an important moral significance for us, and, obviously, this is why this mystery is open to people. Indeed, it elevates the very idea of monotheism, puts it on firm ground and eliminates those important, insurmountable difficulties that previously arose for human thought. Some of the thinkers of pre-Christian antiquity, rising to the concept of the unity of the supreme Being, could not resolve the question of what actually manifests the life and activity of this Being in itself, outside of its relation to the world. And so the Deity was either identified in their view with the world (pantheism), or was lifeless, self-contained, motionless, isolated beginning (deism), or turned into a formidable, inexorably dominating fate over the world (fatalism). Christianity, in the doctrine of the Holy Trinity, has discovered that in the Trinity Being and apart from His relations to the world, the infinite fullness of the inner, mysterious life is manifested from time immemorial. God, in the words of one ancient teacher of the Church (Peter Chrysologus), is one, but not alone. In Him there is a distinction of Persons who are in continuous communion with one another. “God the Father is neither begotten nor proceeds from another Person, the Son of God is eternally born from the Father, the Holy Spirit eternally proceeds from the Father.” In this mutual communion of the Divine Persons from time immemorial consists the inner, secret life of the Divine, which before Christ was closed by an impenetrable veil.

Through the mystery of the Trinity, Christianity taught not only to honor God, to revere Him, but also to love Him. Through this very mystery, it gave the world that gratifying and significant idea that God is infinite, perfect Love. The strict, dry monotheism of other religious teachings (Judaism and Mohammedanism), without rising to the frank idea of the Divine Trinity, therefore cannot rise to the true concept of love as the dominant property of God. Love by its very essence is unthinkable outside of union, communion. If God is one-man, then in relation to whom could His Love be revealed? To the world? But the world is not eternal. In what way could Divine love manifest itself in pre-peaceful eternity? Besides, the world is limited, and the love of God cannot be revealed in all its infinity. The highest love, for its full manifestation, requires the same highest object. But where is he? Only the mystery of the Triune God gives a solution to all these difficulties. It reveals that the love of God has never remained inactive, without manifestations: the Persons of the Most Holy Trinity from eternity abide with each other in uninterrupted communion of love. The Father loves the Son (John 5:20; 3:35) and calls Him beloved (Matthew 3:17; 17:5, etc.). The Son says of Himself: “I love the Father” (John 14:31). Brief but expressive words are profoundly true Blessed Augustine: “The mystery of the Christian Trinity is the mystery of Divine love. You see the Trinity if you see love.”

The Holy Trinity is a theological term reflecting the Christian doctrine of Trinity. This is one of the most important concepts of Orthodoxy.

The dogma of the Holy Trinity is the foundation of the Christian religion.

God is one in essence, but trinity in persons: Father, Son and Holy Spirit, the Trinity consubstantial and indivisible.

The very word "Trinity" of non-biblical origin was introduced into the Christian lexicon in the second half of the 2nd century by Theophilus of Antioch. The doctrine of the Holy Trinity is given in the Christian Revelation.

The mystery of the Holy Trinity is comprehended, and only in part, in the experience of spiritual life. This comprehension is always associated with an ascetic feat. V.N. Lossky says: “Apophatic ascent is an ascent to Golgotha, therefore no speculative philosophy could ever rise to the mystery of the Holy Trinity.”

The Trinity distinguishes Christianity from all other monotheistic religions: Judaism, Islam. The doctrine of the Trinity is the foundation of all Christian faith and moral teaching, for example, the doctrine of God the Savior, God the Sanctifier, etc. V.N. … to know the mystery of the Most Holy Trinity in its fullness means to enter into the Divine life, into the very life of the Most Holy Trinity.”

The doctrine of the Triune God comes down to three propositions:
1) God is trinity and trinity consists in the fact that there are three Persons (hypostases) in God: Father, Son, Holy Spirit.

2) Each Person of the Most Holy Trinity is God, but They are not three Gods, but the essence of a single Divine Being.

3) All three Persons differ in personal or hypostatic properties.

The Holy Fathers, in order to somehow bring the doctrine of the Holy Trinity closer to the perception of man, used various kinds of analogies borrowed from the created world.
For example, the sun and the light and heat emanating from it. A source of water, a spring from it, and, in fact, a stream or a river. Some see an analogy in the arrangement of the human mind (St. Ignatius Brianchaninov. Ascetic experiments): “Our mind, word and spirit, by the simultaneity of their beginning and by their mutual relations, serve as an image of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.”
However, all these analogies are very imperfect. If we take the first analogy - the sun, outgoing rays and heat - then this analogy implies a certain temporal process. If we take the second analogy - a source of water, a key and a stream, then they differ only in our understanding, but in reality it is a single water element. As for the analogy connected with the abilities of the human mind, it can only be an analogy of the image of the Revelation of the Most Holy Trinity in the world, but not of intra-trinitarian being. Moreover, all these analogies place unity above trinity.
St. Basil the Great considered the rainbow to be the most perfect of analogies borrowed from the created world, because “one and the same light is both continuous in itself and multicolored.” “And in the multicoloredness a single face opens up - there is no middle and no transition between colors. It is not visible where the rays are delimited. We clearly see the difference, but we cannot measure the distances. And together, the multi-color rays form a single white. A single essence is revealed in a multi-colored radiance.

A Brief History of the Dogma of the Holy Trinity

Indeed, the doctrine of the Trinity was made possible by the Incarnation. As they say in the troparion of Theophany, in Christ "Trinity worship appeared." The doctrine of Christ is “a stumbling block for the Jews, but foolishness for the Greeks” (1 Cor. 1:23). Likewise, the doctrine of the Trinity is a stumbling block for both "strict" Jewish monotheism and Hellenic polytheism. Therefore, all attempts to rationally comprehend the mystery of the Most Holy Trinity led to delusions of either a Jewish or Hellenic nature.

The first dissolved the Persons of the Trinity in a single nature, for example, the Sabellians, while others reduced the Trinity to three unequal beings (Arians). Arianism was condemned in 325 at the First Ecumenical Council of Nicaea. The main act of this Council was the compilation of the Nicene Creed, in which non-biblical terms were introduced, among which the term "omousios" - "consubstantial" played a special role in the trinitarian disputes of the 4th century.

To uncover the true meaning of the term "homousios" took great efforts of the great Cappadocians: Basil the Great, Gregory the Theologian and Gregory of Nyssa.
The great Cappadocians, first of all, Basil the Great, strictly distinguished between the concepts of "essence" and "hypostasis". The Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are its manifestations in the Persons, each of which has the fullness of the divine essence and is in inseparable unity with it. The hypostases differ from each other only in personal (hypostatic) properties.
In addition, the Cappadocians actually identified (primarily two Gregory: Nazianzus and Nyssa) the concept of "hypostasis" and "person". “Face” in theology and philosophy of that time was a term that belonged not to the ontological, but to the descriptive plan, that is, the mask of an actor or the legal role that a person performed could be called a face.
By identifying "person" and "hypostasis" in trinitarian theology, the Cappadocians thereby transferred this term from the descriptive plane to the ontological plane. The consequence of this identification was, in essence, the emergence of a new concept that the ancient world did not know: this term is “personality”. The Cappadocians succeeded in reconciling the abstractness of Greek philosophical thought with the biblical idea of a personal Deity.

Difference of Divine Persons according to hypostatic properties

According to the doctrine, Hypostases are Personalities, and not impersonal forces. At the same time, hypostases have a single nature. Naturally, the question arises, how to distinguish between them?
All divine properties belong to a common nature, they are characteristic of all three Hypostases and therefore they cannot express the differences of Divine Persons by themselves. It is impossible to give an absolute definition of each Hypostasis using one of the Divine names.
One of the features of personal existence is that a person is unique and unrepeatable, and therefore, it cannot be defined, it cannot be subsumed under a certain concept, since the concept always generalizes; cannot be reduced to a common denominator. Therefore, a personality can be perceived only through its relation to other personalities.
This is what we see in , where the concept of Divine Persons is based on the relationships that exist between them.
Starting approximately from the end of the 4th century, we can talk about generally accepted terminology, according to which hypostatic properties are expressed in the following terms: the Father has unbegottenness, the Son has begottenness (from the Father), and the procession (from the Father) of the Holy Spirit. Personal properties are properties that are incommunicable, eternally remaining unchanged, exclusively belonging to one or another of the Divine Persons. Thanks to these properties, the Persons are distinguished from each other, and we recognize them as special Hypostases.
At the same time, distinguishing three Hypostases in God, we confess the Trinity consubstantial and indivisible. Consubstantial means that the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are three independent Divine Persons possessing all divine perfections, but these are not three special separate beings, not three Gods, but the One God. They have a single and indivisible Divine nature. Each of the Persons of the Trinity possesses the divine nature in perfection and wholly.

The day of the Holy Trinity is celebrated on the fiftieth day after Easter, so this one is also called Pentecost. The feast of Pentecost, or the day of the Holy Trinity, passed like this. On the tenth day after the Ascension of the Lord Jesus Christ, on the day of the Jewish feast of the first harvest, when the disciples and the Virgin Mary with them were in the Upper Room of Zion, at the third hour of the day a great noise was heard in the air, as during a storm. In the air, bright fluttering tongues of fire appeared. It was a non-material fire - it was of the same nature with the blessed fire, which annually descends in Jerusalem on Easter, it shone without burning. Hovering over the heads of the apostles, the tongues of fire descended on them and rested. Immediately, along with the external manifestation, an internal one took place, which took place in: “all were filled with the Holy Spirit.” Both the Mother of God and the apostles felt at that moment an extraordinary power acting in them. Simply and directly, they were given from above a new grace-filled gift of the verb - they spoke in languages that they did not know before. This was the gift needed to preach the gospel throughout the world.

In memory of this event, the feast of Pentecost is also called the day of the descent of the Holy Spirit, as well as the day of the Holy Trinity: in the manifestation of the Holy Spirit, who came from God the Father according to the promise of God the Son, the mystery of the unity of the Holy Trinity was revealed. This day received the name of Pentecost not only in memory of ancient holiday, but also because this event fell on the fiftieth day after the Christian Easter. Just as the Easter of Christ replaced the ancient Jewish holiday, so Pentecost laid the foundation for the Church of Christ as a union in the Spirit on earth.

About the Holy Trinity on Pravmir:

The main idea of the doctrine of the trinity is the concept of the trinity of God, that is, the existence of three Persons with one nature. God is one, but in three Persons.
Each Person has always been and is God in all its fullness. Each individual Person in its entirety is equal to two other Persons, and all of them participate in the consubstantial Deity. No Person is greater or less than two other Persons.

God is not comprehensible by the human mind, but out of love for His creation, God reveals himself and reveals Himself to man in three Persons. The three divine Persons are God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. These three Persons have a single Divine nature, but at the same time they have a special personality of their own. The doctrine of the Trinity, that God is one, but in three persons, is not specifically stated in the Holy Scriptures. We don't find the word "Trinity" in the Bible at all. However, for Christianity it is one of the most important teachings and it is based on evidence from the Holy Scriptures.

The doctrine of the Trinity allows you to more clearly reveal and understand the essence of God, the relationship, what they can be and what they should be between God and man. The doctrine of the Trinity is generally hallmark Christianity. Not a single world religion, except Christianity, teaches that God is one, but in three persons and each person is Divine. This is a very important part of our Christian faith. The doctrine of the Trinity helps to better reveal the essence of God; Who is God, what is He like, what is His attitude towards man, how can a person approach God?

The next factor in the significance and importance of the doctrine of the Trinity is the question concerning Jesus Christ; who is he? Is He really God? Is He really the bearer of the Divine nature? At all times there have been and are disputes around the person of Jesus Christ and His nature. History knows many statements that Christ is not God, He is just a man. Others believed that He became God at the time of baptism or even after the resurrection. And before that, He was an ordinary person, although very intelligent and virtuous.

Holy Scripture tells us about several Divine mysteries. This is the mystery of the Incarnation. “And unquestioningly, the great mystery of godliness: God has appeared in the flesh” (1 Timothy 3:16). The apostle Paul speaks of yet another mystery: “Therefore a man will leave his father and mother and cleave to his wife, and the two will become one flesh. This mystery is great; I speak in relation to Christ and to the Church” (Eph. 5:31-32). The question of the trinity of God or God in three persons is one of the greatest mysteries of God. This issue causes a lot of controversy among theologians, and different understandings and views on the issue of the trinity of God continue to live in our time.

Dr. Aiden Tozer had a wonderful comment on this: “Some people who reject everything they cannot explain, deny that God is triune. Looking closely at the Almighty with their cold and calm eyes, they think that it cannot be that He is both One and three at the same time. These people forget that their whole life is shrouded in mystery. They do not think that any real explanation, even the simplest phenomenon of nature, is hidden in darkness, and explaining this phenomenon is no easier than the mystery of the Divine. But, despite the fact that there is no clear and specific doctrine of the Trinity in the Bible, we argue that there is a Biblical justification for understanding God as one God, but in three persons.

The Bible teaches quite clearly and definitely that God is indivisible. The biblical God is one: “The Lord our God, the Lord is one” (Deut. 6:4). These words affirm Monotheism. There is only one God who created everything and gave life to every living being. No one will ever be able to stand beside and compare with the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. God said to Moses, "I am who I am" (Exodus 3:14). In other words, I was, am and will be. The apostle Paul affirms the truth that there is only one God. He writes in Timothy: "For there is one God, and one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus" (1 Tim. 2:5-6). The Ten Commandments, which were given by God to Moses, began with the words: “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. Thou shalt have no other gods before me” (Ex. 20:2-3). A jealous God is the true God. He alone is the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. The history of Israel is full of examples when God - Jehovah, showed His absolute superiority over everything that other nations considered their gods. The unique difference between the God of Israel and our God from all other so-called gods is shown by the Apostle Paul. He simply says that all other gods are idols and they are nothing to us, but we have one God! He writes: “So, regarding the use of food sacrificed to idols, we know that an idol is nothing in the world and that there is no other God than the One. For although there are so-called gods, either in heaven or on earth - since there are many gods and many lords - but we have one God the Father, from whom are all things, and we are for Him, and one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom all things and we by Him” (1 Corinthians 8:4-6).

Along with this, there are many Bible texts that show us the three faces of God. This is the face of God the Father, the face of God the Son and the face of God the Holy Spirit. For example, at the baptism of Jesus, we clearly see the participation of all three persons of the Godhead in this act. Jesus Christ is baptized, the Holy Spirit descends on Him in the form of a dove, and the Father testifies from heaven: “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased” (Matthew 3:16-17). This is also clearly seen in the command of Jesus Christ given to his disciples: “Go, therefore, make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit” (Mat. 28:19). This text, it seems to me, is especially important and significant due to the fact that it sounded from the lips of the Lord himself. This is not the command of the Apostle Paul, not the decision of the Church Council, this is the indication of the Lord, where all three persons of the Godhead are mentioned. So, we have considered this issue in the light of the New Testament. Meanwhile, in the Old Testament there are texts on the basis of which we can draw a conclusion about God as God in three persons or God in the plural. For example, the book of Genesis says: “And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness” (Gen. 1:26). And Isaiah says that one day he heard the voice of the Lord saying: “Whom shall I send, and who will go for Us?” (Isaiah 6:8). The words “Let us make Ours and Us” are plural words. This is a clear indication of several Persons.

What evidence do we have in Scripture that all three persons are one? What evidence is there in Scripture that we are dealing with a triune God?

Firstly, it should be noted that all three hypostases carry the Divine nature. No one doubts the divinity of the Father. All Scripture speaks of Him as the Heavenly Father, thereby emphasizing His Divinity. “Your heavenly Father” (Matthew 6:26). We have “one God the Father” (1 Corinthians 8:6). The divinity of the Father is also emphasized by His properties: Omnipotence. “I am God Almighty” (Gen. 17:1). The Lord, speaking to Jeremiah, says: “I am the Lord of all flesh. What if something is impossible for Me?” (Jer. 32:27).

He is omniscient and omnipresent. Omniscient means all-knowing and all-aware. Omnipresent - having time to visit everywhere, taking part in everything. “Oh, the abyss of riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments, and how unsearchable are His ways” (Rom. 11:33). David exclaims, “Where can I go from Your Spirit, and where can I flee from Your presence?” (Psalm 139:7). “Your Father who sees in secret will repay you openly” (Mat. 6:4). These passages of Holy Scripture speak of God, who knows and knows everything at all times and in all places.

He is limitless. This means that there are no limits limiting God. He is a God that cannot be measured, He is immeasurable. “Truly, does God live on earth? The heaven and the heaven of the heavens cannot contain you” (1 Kings 8:27).

Our God is an incorruptible God. Imperishable, in the sense of eternal, never disappearing. “And they changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and to four-footed animals, and to creeping things” (Rom. 1:23). These are just a few of the qualities of God the Father that speak of His Divinity.

DIVINITY AND JUS S U S

H R I S T A.

On the question of the divinity of Jesus Christ, there have always been different opinions. Some affirmed His divinity, others categorically denied it. So the famous teaching of Gnosticism claimed that the Lord Jesus Christ had only the appearance of flesh. He did not have a real human body, but a ghostly, illusory one. But this statement absolutely does not correspond to the Biblical teaching about the incarnation. The body of the Lord Jesus Christ was material and real. Jesus Christ, like all people, experienced fatigue, weariness, thirst and hunger. Holy Scripture clearly speaks of this: The temptation of Jesus in the wilderness (Matt.Gl.4). The conversation of Christ with the Samaritan woman at the well (John.Gl.4).

So, the body of Jesus Christ was not ghostly or illusory. That is, the incarnation of God in man was genuine. John writes, "The Word became flesh" (John 1:14). He doesn't write that the word became in some way like flesh, It became flesh.

In contrast to Gnosticism, there was an opinion that Jesus Christ did not have a Divine nature. The highest form of denial of the Divinity of Christ was Arianism, this heresy was condemned at the Councils of Nicea and Constantinople in 325 and 381.

Arianism is a heretical doctrine that denies the divinity of Jesus. The supporters of this heresy taught that the Son is not eternal, did not exist before birth, was not without beginning. The founder was Arius, a presbyter from Alexandria.

In the 17th century, the so-called doctrine of Socinianism / Socianism /, named after Faust Sotsina, arose. Supporters of this doctrine rejected the dogma of the Holy Trinity. They taught that if Christ were not “just a man,” He could not be an example for people. Currently, religious movements such as Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses believe that true God, only God the Father is, and Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit do not possess divinity. However, the divinity of Christ is repeatedly emphasized in the New Testament. The Gospel of John begins with a wonderful narration: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God… And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth; and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only begotten of the Father” (John 1:1). This text clearly shows the truth that Jesus Christ, as the Son of God, is the same Word that was in the beginning and was the Word of God. It was It that became Flesh. “God appeared in the flesh” (1 Tim. 3:16). At the same time, the birth of Christ is not the appearance of a new person, or a new God. It is a manifestation of the already existing God.

Dr. Martin Lloyd-Jones writes in his book: "God the Father, God the Son" Pg. 232. “Pay attention, I did not say that with the birth of Jesus of Nazareth, a new personality appeared in Bethlehem. This is not true. This statement is blatant heresy. According to the doctrine of the incarnation, the eternal, second person of the Trinity entered the time and space of this world, took on human nature, was born as an infant, lived human life appearing in the likeness of sinful flesh” (Rom. 8:3).

The baby in the womb and in the manger of Bethlehem was a helpless baby, like any newborn, but He, at the same time, was the second person of the Holy Trinity. This is incomprehensible to the human mind. Jesus Himself bears witness to His existence, before being born in the manger of Bethlehem. He says, "Before Abraham was, I am" (John 8:58). This is the Word made flesh, in the face of Jesus Christ, John sees as the beginning of everything in general, he sees Him as the source of life. “All things were made through Him” (John 1:3). "He is the firstborn of every creature" (Col. 1:15). Moreover, Christ testifies of his oneness to the Father. “I and the Father are one” (John 10:30). Over and over again He says, “I am in the Father, and the Father is in Me, and the Father who is in Me does the works” (John 14:10). The divinity of Christ, and His one essence to the Father, is remarkably confirmed in the words of the Apostle Paul to Timothy. “God appeared in the flesh” (1 Tim. 3:16). God cannot lose His Divine nature, but at the same time He appeared in human flesh and took on the form of a man. If God cannot lose His Divine nature, then having appeared to us in Christ, He retains His Divinity.

Possessing all the fullness of the Godhead, Jesus Christ performs divine activity in his earthly ministry: “He forgives sins” (Luke 5:21). "He saves sinners" (John 10:9). Jesus Christ “gives eternal life” (John 10:27-28). "He judges" (Mat. 25:31-36). Jesus Christ also has all the properties and qualities that God the Father has. He is omnipresent. “For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them” (Mt. 18:20). He is omnipotent. “This one, being the radiance of glory and the image of His hypostasis, and holding everything by the word of His power, having accomplished the cleansing of our sins by Himself, sat down at the right hand (throne) of the Majesty on high” (Heb. 1:3). Jesus Christ Himself told John on the island of Patmos: “I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end… The First and the Last… Who is, and was, and is to come, the Almighty” (Rev. 1:817), etc. So, Christ is the Son of God and the eternal image of the invisible God. Heb. 1.3. “In Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily” (Col. 2:9). Dr. Martin Lloyd-Jones writes: “The Son did not begin His existence in Bethlehem. He came from eternity, from the bosom of God Himself, and, taking a special form, entered earthly life, into time, into history” (God the Father, God the Son, p. 232).

DIVINE SPIRIT

S V I T O G O.

Now consider the question of the divinity of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is a divine person. This is the person with whom we have the most direct relationship. For this reason, we should study more closely His nature, actions, and work in and with us. In principle, the Divinity of the third hypostasis of the Godhead - the Holy Spirit, follows from the recognition of the consubstantiality of the Son and the Father. But, nevertheless, it requires a logical, and even more so, Biblical justification.

Some see a difference between the Spirit of God, the Spirit of Jesus, and the Holy Spirit. However, the Bible teaches that there is only one Spirit. “One body and one Spirit” (Eph. 4:4). The Spirit of God and the Spirit of Christ is the Holy Spirit. He is one and the same. We find confirmation of this in the words of the Apostle Paul. “But you do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit, if only the Spirit of God lives in you. If anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not His” (Rom. 8:9). “He who unites with the Lord is one spirit with the Lord, and your bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit who lives in you” (1 Corinthians 6:17-19). While pursuing the same idea, the apostle Paul, nevertheless, uses different expressions. Spirit of God, Spirit of Christ, Spirit of the Lord, Holy Spirit. This clearly indicates that they are one and the same Spirit. There can be no mistake here, for the author of the Bible is the Holy Spirit, who inspired various writers. The Holy Spirit controlled them so that they did not make a single mistake, there are no contradictions in the entire Bible, although all 66 books of the Bible were written by different people and at different times. It is amazing. So: the Father is God, the Son is God, so the Spirit of the Father and the Son is also God.

Scripture speaks clearly and definitely of the divinity of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit has divine properties. He is omnipresent: "Whither shall I go from Thy Spirit." (Psalm 139:7). He is omnipotent: “You send Your Spirit, they are created” (Psalm 103:30). Omniscience is also a property of the Holy Spirit. “The Spirit searches all things, even the depths of God” (1 Corinthians 2:10). This is proof of the divinity of the Holy Spirit. For He has the same qualities or attributes as God the Father. Further, the Holy Spirit, as the Power of the Most High, participated in the birth of Jesus Christ through the virgin Mary (Luke 1:35). Likewise, the Holy Spirit manifests great divine power, for He changes human hearts, resurrecting them to a new and holy life. And one more confirmation of this truth. The Apostle Peter, denouncing Ananias, said: “Why did you allow Satan to put a thought into your heart, lie to the Holy Spirit, and hide it from the price of the earth? You have not lied to men, but to God!” (D. Ap. 5:3-4). In these words, the Apostle Peter identifies God the Father with the Holy Spirit, thereby showing and affirming the divinity of the Holy Spirit. The quoted passages of Scripture clearly refute the views of the Arians, who denied the Divinity of the Holy Spirit (Arius was the presbyter of Alexandria, who lived in the 4th century).

Speaking about the divinity of the Holy Spirit, it should be emphasized that the Holy Spirit is a person. Not only at the dawn of Christianity, but also in our time, there is a belief that the Holy Spirit is just a force, or a certain influence, which can manifest itself in the form of a breath of wind, etc. For example, the Socinians mentioned earlier, the followers of Socinus, taught that the Holy Spirit is simply a divine power, not a person. This misunderstanding leads to many today, mostly in the charismatic movement, who teach that we need more of this "power" to work miracles and all kinds of signs. Scripture teaches that more humility is needed so that the Holy Spirit can lead us, use us, and do His work through us. That is, we do not use Him, but He uses us as He pleases. The proof that the Holy Spirit is a person is also the fact that He has a will, for “He distributes gifts as He pleases” (1 Corinthians 12:11). He can speak. “The Spirit said to Philip” (D. Ap. 8:29). He intercedes for us. "He intercedes for the Saints according to the will of God" (Rom. 8:26-27). You can lie to the Holy Spirit (D.Ap.5:3). He can be resisted (Ap. 7:51). He can be insulted and blasphemed (Matt. 12:31,32). Moreover, the Holy Spirit is directly involved in the salvation of sinners. He convicts of sin, points to Christ as the Savior, to His sacrifice and blood. It leads to repentance and gives strength to repent. He then accomplishes the greatest work of building a spiritual home in every person who has accepted Jesus Christ by faith. Charles Spurgeon said, “It is a blessed work to preach the salvation of Jesus Christ. But not to mention the role of the Holy Spirit in salvation is evil. A ransom has been paid for us, but it is only through the Spirit that we know of redemption. We have been given precious blood, but without the Holy Spirit we could never be cleansed by it through faith and repentance” (12 Sermons on the Holy Spirit, p. 124). Based on the above, it is quite obvious that in the Holy Scriptures the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Christ and the Spirit of God, is one and the same Spirit, which is a Divine Person.

So, this is an amazing and incomprehensible human mind truth. Three Divine Persons: God - the Father, God - the Son and God - the Holy Spirit, in its essence, this is one indivisible God! Moreover, it should always be borne in mind that this trinity is based on the equal unity of all three persons. One might get the impression that all three persons, although united, are not equal. For example, Jesus himself once said: “My Father is greater than I” (John 14:28). Also, Jesus repeatedly emphasized that He does only what the Father tells Him, that He does only His will (John 8:28-29). However, the word of God teaches us that “Christ did not consider it robbery to be equal with God” (Phil. 2:6). The Apostle Paul also writes: “in Christ dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily” (Col. 29).

However, there is an explanation for this seeming contradiction. During the Ecumenical Church Councils, when there were disputes about the divinity of Jesus Christ, the Fathers of the Church wrote: “Equal to the Father in His Divine Essence; less than the Father in his human essence” God incarnated in the form of a man, He became a son of man, but this does not mean that He lost His Divine nature. He did not manifest it, but He could not lose or renounce the Divine essence. Of course, this is the greatest mystery to the end, incomprehensible.

EQUAL UNITY OF THREE.

So, what is the expression of the trinity or equal unity of the three? The question of the equal unity of the three has also always been the subject of discussions and even divisions. Thomas Watson in his writings: "The Fundamentals of Practical Theology" writes: "The Trinity is one in essence. Three Hypostases have the same Divine nature and it cannot be said that one Hypostasis is God more than the other. The unity of the Persons of the Trinity consists in Their mutual existence in each other, or in the existence of all together in one. All three persons are so inseparable that each is in the other and together with the other” “You are the Father in me, and I in you” (John 17:21).

Today there are two directions. One recognizes that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and from the Son. Another direction holds that the Holy Spirit proceeds only from the Father. We hold the doctrine that the Holy Spirit proceeds from both the Father and the Son. We do this on the basis that the Holy Spirit is also a Divine Person, just like God the Father and God the Son.

Starting from the moment of the creation of the Universe, we find this equal trinity. The first chapter of Genesis tells us about the creation of heaven and earth. God the Father, God the Son and the Spirit of God participated in this creation, i.e. God the Holy Spirit. (We said earlier that the Spirit of God, the Spirit of Christ and the Holy Spirit are one and the same Spirit) (Gen. 1:1-2). In the epistle to the Colossians we read: “Who (we are talking about Christ) is the image of the invisible God, begotten before all creation, for by him everything was created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible: whether the thrones of dominions, or rulers, power, all things were created by Him and for Him” (Col. 1:15-16). Here it is a blessed unity - all three persons participate in creation: God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit!

Let's pay attention to the Incarnation and carefully read about it in the Gospel of Luke. The angel of God says to Mary: “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore, even that which is born holy shall be called the Son of God” (Luke 1:35). In this word, it is quite obvious that the whole Holy Trinity participates in the Incarnation: the Most High Himself or God the Father, the Holy Spirit and the Son of God - Jesus Christ. We find a remarkable evidence of the trinity at the baptism of Jesus. Evangelist Luke writes that when Christ was baptized, the heavens opened, and the Holy Spirit descended on Him in bodily form like a dove, and there was a voice from heaven: “You are my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased” (Luke 3:21-22 ). Again we meet with the trinity: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The Resurrection of Christ and our resurrection takes place with the direct participation of the Holy Trinity. “If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead lives in you, then he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who lives in you” (Rom. 8:9-11). This is, although not direct, but quite reasonable Biblical teaching about the Trinity. Otherwise it can not be. After all, the essence lies in the fact that, performing certain functions, this or that person of the Godhead, in the end, does the same thing, has the same goal - the salvation of sinful humanity. “God the Father gave His Son” (John 3:16). The Son of God died for the sins of people, like the Lamb of God (John 1:36). The Holy Spirit today "convinces the world of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment," prompting people to repentance (John 16:8-9). The participation of the Trinity in the salvation of man is also clearly reflected in other verses of the Gospel of John. John writes that when Christ leaves, he will implore the Father, who will send another Comforter, the Spirit of Truth. He will come to you and will always be with you and teach you everything (John 14:15-18). He will not glorify Himself and will not speak from Himself, but will remind everything that Christ said (John 16:14).

The Equal Trinity is beautifully expressed in the commandment of the Lord about baptism. “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” (Mat. 28:19). There is no hint here that any person of the Deity has an advantage over another person or that there is any subordination. All three are equally equal. The apostolic blessing contains confirmation of the doctrine of the trinity of God. “The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God the Father, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all” (2 Corinthians 13:13). Here we see an equal and equal blessing, one, indivisible God in three Persons. Thomas Watson on this truth said: “If one God exists in three hypostases, let's be with the same reverence, treats all the persons of the Trinity. The Trinity has no more or less. The divinity of the Father does not exceed the divinity of the Son or the Holy Spirit. The Trinity has order, but not ranks. None of the Personalities bears the title of His Eminence, which elevates it above the others, therefore we must worship all Hypostases with equal zeal.”
“That all should honor the Son, as they honor the Father” (John 5:23).
From all the considerations, the following conclusions can be drawn:
- God is one, but in three persons.
- He is one, but does not consist of three different beings.
- Each individual face of the Triune God carries the Divine nature.
- Each person of the Divine at a certain time performed a certain function, outwardly one could notice some kind of subordination, in fact, all three Persons were always in complete harmony and absolute unity, performing one common task - the salvation of the human race.
- All three Persons of the Godhead have always been, are and will be, for They are eternal.

The Apostle Paul tells us another amazing truth: God the Father will submit everything to His Son, and then the Son himself will submit to the Father, and "there shall be GOD ALL IN ALL".(1 Corinthians 15:28).

Scripture teaches us that, for our salvation, there is a division of labor and subordination between the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. The Father is the fullness of the Godhead and “No man has seen Him, nor can see Him” (1 Tim. 6:16). He has no boundaries. The Son is the fullness of the Godhead, manifested in a visible way, “for in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily” (Col. 2:9). And then comes the amazing statement! The Holy Spirit is the fullness of the Godhead; He acts directly on creation. Do you see the difference? There is the invisible fullness of the Divine, the visible fullness of the Divine, and the fullness of the Divine, acting immediately and directly in us. Thus, we can say that the Spirit, by His power, reveals the Father in the form of the Son! (Martin Lloyd-Jones, God the Holy Spirit. Page 25).

How to depict the example of the Trinity of God?

The second part our question - how to depict the Trinity of God by example?

This is a very difficult task. If it were easy and simple, then there would probably not be such long and fierce discussions. When explaining this issue, I use the example of water. It comes in three states: water, ice and steam. But using this analogy, I always make a reservation that this is also very weak example which does not fully explain this Divine mystery of the Trinity.

Tertullian once said: “The doctrine of the Trinity is revealed by God, and not built by man. From a human point of view, it is so absurd that no one could invent it. We hold the doctrine of the Trinity not because it is obvious or logically irreproachable. We adhere to it because in it God has revealed what He is.”

The doctrine of the Trinity or the unity of God, in which there are three Persons - doctrine, supernatural. This is one of the greatest mysteries of God. This is a wonderful revelation of God, which must be believed in with deep humility and reverence. Therefore, all human attempts to explain this greatest mystery are doomed. This truth can only be judged by a spiritual person whose mind is enlightened by the Holy Spirit. Let us be very careful in our desires to penetrate into the greatest mystery of the Divine. Let us always maintain a special reverence for the Face of the invisible, but manifested in the flesh of God!

Principal Pastor of the Church SLAVIC CHURCH ECB "ON THE MOUNTAIN"

Born in the small Siberian town of Tara, Omsk region.
The family had twelve children.
Today they are all adults, they have their own families, they all knew the Lord in their time.
Three of them are pastors.
Alexander Kirillovich has an incomplete higher education: Omsk Medical Institute.
At the age of 21, Alexander Kirillovich received Holy water baptism in the church of Alma-Ata.
There he began his ministry among the youth and his work as a preacher.
In 1972 he married his sister in faith, Olga Khivrenko. They have five children and several grandchildren.
All children are believers, members of the church, serve in churches.
Since 1973, Alexander served as Secretary of the Council under the Senior Presbyter for Kyrgyzstan.
Then, for 15 years, until 1993, he served as a pastor in the ECB Church in Frunze.
Alexander took an active part in many evangelistic activities of the former Soviet Union.
Currently lives in the USA, Spokane.
Carries a pastoral ministry in the church of the ECB and is the Chairman of the North-West Association
Slavic churches in North America.
In 2009, he received a Master of Theology degree from the International Theological Seminary (Florida).
Over the past 18 years, has been making missionary trips to different countries peace,
together with a male choir from Germany.

This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

How to understand the trinity of God - the Holy Trinity - God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit?

The Holy Trinity exists. There is God the Father, who is the father of all people and all human souls, God the Son - Jesus Christ. God is the Holy Spirit. God the Holy Spirit has absorbed all the souls that exist in the entire higher realm and who live in a physical body on earth.

About the Holy Trinity

God is one, as written in the Bible. And the fact that God exists in three persons: God the Father - directly God, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit - is the right message. So united so that people better understand the essence of the highest heavenly divine state. But in fact, God is God. And Jesus Christ is the messenger of God on earth, who was sent to earth with his mission, and he fulfilled this mission. He gathered so many human souls around him that he became a natural continuation of God on earth, began to be called his son. The third hypostasis is the Holy Spirit, which is, in fact, human souls united by the understanding of God. But the most important God is God the Father, who created the entire Universe that does not fit in the consciousness of people: both the subtle and the physical world, not limited by the Milky Way and nearby galaxies. Everything that God created exists in perfect different types: in one universe it exists in one form, in another universe, as an experiment of God, in another form, etc. God created many universes: the diversity of the world is unique and so diverse that it defies description. All this gamut of varieties God absorbs in himself, accumulates and by this God lives, by this he is great. People and all beings that live in other universes fill God with their strength, experiences, feelings, emotions, all the richness and beauty of the colors of physical and subtle life. That is why God is great.

What is Mind?

God created such a substance as Mind . This is not written anywhere in any religion, but Mind as a separate Divine substance exists. Mind is what organizes and permeates the universes, other substances, humanity. This is what systematizes this whole world and keeps the world in balance. In fact, these are the laws of God, which are discovered by saints, physicists, biologists, chemists, astrophysicists, philosophers, eclecticists, alchemists, psychics ... If there were no mind, all the contents of the Universe would have a chaotic appearance and forms, and each in conflict with each other. In fact, everything that is created by God is harmonious, logical, is within certain boundaries and forms, which allows all types and forms of Life to exist and develop. Thus the great purposes of God are realized.

Where is all this going and what is the point of all this?

All this is moving towards perfection, in order to reach those wonderful heights and states that are achieved in the Highest Heaven in physical bodies. Divine world. In many universes that are not yet open to people, living beings have reached such a degree of understanding of God (the Trinity), when even in the physical body one can feel all the infinity, all the greatness and all the love of the Divine. When there is an understanding even in the physical body, how great and beautiful God is and how wonderful everything that he has conceived. That life is eternal and endless.

However, one must understand that the people of the Earth are still at a low stage of development and understanding of the Divine essence - the Divine Trinity.