Abstract

Man is the crown of the Holy Trinity’s act of creation. St. Gregory of Nyssa teaches that “man is the human face of God” as he is created in the image of God. Man has his source in God, whereas his existence refl ects God. The realization of his humanity is possible only in unity with the Creator, and apart from Him, man looses the ability to realize his calling and his purpose. According to Orthodox theological thought, a man wants to enter that Divine life, by means of free will and the Grace of God, unite himself mystically with Christ and become a living member of His Body, which is made possible by the Holy Spirit. The love of God, as St. Paul says, has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit (Rom. 5:5). He makes the Risen Christ present in the Church along with His saving acts that sanctify man and the whole cosmos. A Christian’s participation in the saving mystery of Christ is a personal gift, freely accepted by man. The saving acts of Christ become the Church’s acts, and thereby the acts of the faithful thanks to the personal gift which is granted by the Holy Spirit. Therefore, man now has the possibility of becoming a participant in the eternal Kingdom of God, which is in terms of this world, is yet to come. When the Holy Spirit descends on us and dwells in us, He give us the One whose life He is. Th is is the gift of the Holy Spirit, the essence of our personal Pentecost in the Sacrament of Chrismation. By the Holy Spirit and in the Holy Spirit, believers in Christ become the Church, and the Church is the place of the activity of the Holy Spirit: “For where the Church is, there is the Spirit of God; and where the Spirit of God is, there is the Church, and every kind of grace. Th e Spirit is truth.” Proper pneumatology, which is strongly emphasised in Orthodoxy, is possible only in close association with teaching on the Holy Trinity correctly understood. The first Person of the Holy Trinity, God the Father is the Source of Divinity, the Cause or Principle of the Two remaining Persons. He is the bond of unity of the Three – God is one, because there is one Father. “Th e Father is the unity, from which and to which the order of Persons runs it course” states St. Gregory the Theologian. The Father, Son and Holy Spirit constitute one Essence, however, there is differentiation between the Persons. None of the Persons act apart from the other Two, but all of the Hypostases act commonly. Each of the Persons do not possess one third of the Divinity, but the entire Divinity in its Fullness. When the Holy Spirit comes to dwell in us, He makes us into a dwelling place of the Holy Trinity, because the Divinity of the Spirit can not be separated from the Divinity of the Father and the Son. Th rough the descent of the Holy Spirit, the Holy Trinity lives in us, divinizing and granting us His uncreated energies, His glory and Divinity, and the eternal Light to which we are called.