The Way Talk 6
The Way Talk 6
The Way Talk 6
As we joyfully follow ‘The Way’ we will discover that the Holy Spirit is always there,
inspiring and guiding us. We cannot escape his presence and divine influence. When next
time we look at the subject of the Church, He will be there too, and the same can be said
for the talks on the Divine Liturgy and the Sacraments in general. We can understand why
the Lord Jesus Christ spoke so much about Him – preparing his disciples and the future
Church for his coming. We see this particularly in St John’s Gospel 15:26 to 16:15.
In this passage Jesus speaks to his disciples about the coming of the Holy Spirit. He says
that He will ‘bear witness to me’ (John 15:26). Later on He says, ‘He will glorify me, for
he will take what is mine and declare it to you.’ (John 16:15). We see here the ever elusive
character of the Holy Spirit for He is not in the business of glorifying Himself, but only
Christ. He works to bring people to Christ, not to Himself. He wants people to concentrate
their attention and affections on Christ, not on Himself.
Also in John 16 Jesus told his disciples that the Holy Spirit ‘will come to convince the world
concerning sin and righteousness and judgement’ (John 16:8). In the West we live in a
world that has lost its moral compass. The Holy Spirit is sent by Christ to restore it.
Jesus also tells the disciples that He will come to guide the Church into all truth (John
16:13). What more could you want! How important it is for us to understand and fully
accept and trust his ministry.
In these passages the word Christ uses to describe the Holy Spirit in the older English
translations is ‘Comforter’, though in modern translations it is more often rendered
‘Counsellor’. It is the English translation of the Greek word Paraklete. The English word
‘comfort’ has changed its meaning through the centuries, and so many generations of
English people have grown up falsely to see the Holy Spirit as the One who comforts us
when we are experiencing trouble rather than the One who strengthens us in conflict with
‘the world, the flesh and the devil’.
The principal role of the Holy Spirit is to strengthen us for action not so much to support
us when things are not going well, although He does that also.
For well over a thousand years Orthodoxy has survived and still thrives in the heartlands
of Islam. More recently it has had to face the most cruel and vicious persecution of all
time, from Communism. A major factor in its success has been the presence and power
of the Holy Spirit at the heart of the Church. So let us look at the Orthodox Church’s
understanding and experience of the Holy Spirit.
Visual Aid 1:
The Filioque Clause
A profound example of this honouring of the Holy Spirit by the Orthodox is shown in
the ‘Filioque’ controversy. In the sixth century the western Church began to change the
Nicene-Constantinople Creed by inserting the words ‘and the Son’ after the clause about
the Holy Spirit that He ‘proceeded from the Father’. But we see the Orthodox Church
defending the original wording of the Creed and by so doing protecting the co-equal
nature of the Persons of the Trinity.
The Orthodox position is based on John 15:26: ‘But when the Counsellor comes, whom I
shall send to you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he
will bear witness to me.’ Metropolitan Kallistos comments, ‘Christ sends the Spirit, but
the Spirit proceeds from the Father, so the Bible teaches. What Orthodoxy does not teach,
and what the Bible does not actually say, is that the Spirit proceeds from the Son’.1 Later he
writes, ‘Many Orthodox regard the Filioque as dangerous and heretical. Filioquism confuses
the persons, and destroys the proper balance between unity and diversity in the Godhead.
Visual Aid 2:
Fresco of the Baptism of our Lord
The Baptism of our Lord
New Katholikon,
Holy Transfiguration Monastery,
Meteora, Greece
Theophany is the name given to what in the West is called Epiphany. In the West the
liturgical focus is on the visit of the Magi to Christ after his birth in Bethlehem. But in the
East the focus is on the baptism of Christ in the river Jordan, which is an event which has
never been given the same emphasis in the West. The most important aspect of Christ’s
baptism is the manifestation of the Trinity – the voice of the Father and the coming of
the Holy Spirit as a dove on Christ. In the Early Church, Christ’s baptism was seen as the
pattern for Christian baptisms. Thus the sealing of the Holy Spirit was always an integral
part of true baptism.
Icon
(third quarter of 15th Century)
As far as the Feast of the Transfiguration is concerned – the Orthodox Church has given it
great prominence from the fourth century AD, whereas in the Latin West it appeared first
in the ninth century AD and only fully in the fifteenth. The late Archbishop of Canterbury,
Michael Ramsey, once wrote, ‘Orthodoxy has a much greater grasp than we in the West of
the significance and meaning of the Transfiguration ... The East has instinctively honoured
the transfiguration and dwelt upon the meaning with special warmth and tenacity ... Nowhere
is the ethos of the East far from the themes which the Transfiguration embodies’.3 The
Orthodox see again in this incident the Trinity: as Jesus is transfigured, the disciples hear
the voice of the Father, so similar to what happened at Christ’s baptism; and the cloud that
overshadowed them is seen as signifying the presence of the Holy Spirit.
We should also note the immensely important contribution of St Gregory Palamas (1296-
1359). He argued that Christians can and do experience the divine light. He sought to answer
the question: how can humans know God and the God who is by nature unknowable? He
answered this by teaching that we know the energies of God, but not his essence. Metropolitan
Kallistos writes, ‘God is Light, and, therefore, the experience of God’s energies takes the form
of Light. The vision ... is not a vision of some created radiance, but of the Light of the Godhead
itself – the same light of the Godhead which surrounded Christ on Mount Tabor.’ 4
Thus the Orthodox see the Transfiguration not only as an experience that Christ received
– but as something we can experience ourselves.
Visual Aid 4:
St Seraphim of Sarov
St Seraphim of Sarov
19 July 1759 –
14 January 1833 (n.s.)
Source unknown
One immediately thinks of the story of St Seraphim of Sarov and his encounter with
Nicholas Motovilov. St Seraphim taught that the true aim of the Christian life was the
acquisition of the Holy Spirit of God, and this was the subject of their discussion in the
forest. They were both to be transfigured:
‘Then Father Seraphim took me very firmly by the shoulders and said: “My son,
we are both at this moment in the Spirit of God. Why don’t you look at me?”
Visual Aid 5:
Icon of Pentecost
Pentecost
Monastery of Dionysiou,
Mount Athos, Greece
Pentecost
We now come to the immensely important event, the coming of the Holy Spirit on the
Day of Pentecost, which is remembered every year on Pentecost Sunday, one of the most
important Feasts in the Orthodox Calendar.
But why Pentecost? When announcing the Holy Spirit’s coming, Jesus Christ answered
this important question in three principal ways:
To empower the Church for evangelism
We have already referred to the presence and activity of the Holy Spirit as recorded in the
Old Testament, most importantly in Creation, and made it clear that Pentecost was not the
The disciples were told by Christ after his Resurrection to do nothing until the Holy Spirit
came. He told them to wait for the promise of the Father, which, he said, ‘you heard from
me, for John baptized with water, but before many days you shall be baptized with the Holy
Spirit’ (Acts 1:4-5). And a little later Christ told them, ‘You shall receive power when the
Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea
and Samaria and to the end of the earth’ (Acts 1:8).
Before the Church could begin its historic mission, it had to receive the power and inspiration
of the Holy Spirit. Christ was not asking the Church to do anything He had not done
himself, for before He began to teach and heal He was baptized in the Jordan by John the
Baptist, and the Holy Spirit came upon Him as a dove.
As St Irenaeus points out, the Apostles did not commence to preach the gospel or to
place anything on record until they were endowed with the gifts and power of the
Holy Spirit.8
Did Pentecost work? Assuredly, for by the end of the day queues were forming for baptisms
– in total over 3000 people. Not a bad start for beginners! And it was to continue. St Luke,
who according to the early church historian Eusebius, and St Jerome, was converted in
Antioch, wrote the Acts of the Apostles which tells the story of how the Church spread
from Jerusalem to Rome in one generation. There are those who think the book should
have been called ‘The Acts of the Holy Spirit’.
We also need to remember that Pentecost was a Church experience – by no means restricted
to the Apostles – because all the Church was gathered in the Upper Room in Jerusalem,
including Mary, the Mother of God, for all of them were to be involved in the mission of
the Son of God.
In the Vespers service on the feast of Pentecost, we sing about the action of the Holy Spirit:
At Pentecost the Christians were ‘all together in one place’ (Acts 2:1). The Holy Spirit
wonderfully creates and sustains Christian unity in the Church. St Paul writes about ‘the
unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace’ (Ephesians 4:1-6). As with the Tower of Babel,
when Christians turn away from God and do their own thing, without the guidance and
blessing of the Holy Spirit, confusion reigns.
When the Most High came down and confused the tongues,
He divided the nations:
But when He distributed the tongues of fire
He called all to unity.
Therefore, with one voice we glorify the All-Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit brought unity to those early Christians; it is said that they ‘had all things
in common’ and ‘were of one heart and soul’ (Acts 2:44 and 4:32). So let us now turn to the
Church and see how the Holy Spirit acts in her.
The Holy Spirit in the Church
Holy Baptism
The Orthodox Church has been the only Church to continue the early practice of Christian
baptism as the three-fold immersion of the candidate in water, followed immediately by
Chrismation symbolizing the reception of the Holy Spirit and His Sealing; and followed
then by the candidates receiving their first communion. The Holy Spirit is active in the
whole baptismal process.
This link between baptism in water and the sacrament of Chrismation, which has always
been practised in the Orthodox Church down the ages, can be clearly seen in the Acts of
the Apostles. In Acts 8, initiation for some baptized Samaritans was completed by Peter
1 Timothy Ware (Metropolitan Kallistos), The Orthodox Church (Penguin Books: London, 1997), p. 212.
2 Ibid., p. 215.
3 Michael Ramsey, The Glory of God and the Transfiguration of Christ (Longman Green and Co.: London,
1946), p. 135, p.137.
4 The Orthodox Church, pp. 68-69.
5 Cited in The Orthodox Church, pp.119-20. This conversation in the forest is recalled in Fedotov,
A Treasury of Russian Spirituality, pp. 273-75.
6 Ibid., p.120.
7 See Bishop Kallistos Ware, The Orthodox Way, revised edition (St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press: Crestwood,
New York, 2002), p. 127.
8 Against Heresies, Book 3, Chapter 1.
9 Cited by Bishop Kallistos Ware, The Orthodox Way, p. 109.
10 Alexander Schmemann, The Eucharist, Sacrament of the Kingdom, (St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press:
Crestwood, New York, 1987), p. 222.
11 Cited by Bishop Kallistos Ware, The Orthodox Way, p. 99.
12 Ibid., p.100.
13 Father Lev Gillet, Orthodox Spirituality (St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press: Crestwood, New York, 1987), p. 71.