👉🏾👉🏾👉🏾Is the #Holy #Spirit in the #Orthodox #Church?
Part 1
Beloved brethren in Christ, peace to you in the name of the life-giving Trinity Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. As the heavenly dew descended upon the disciples at Pentecost, so now let the grace of understanding descend upon us, that we may behold the truth of the divine mystery: the abiding presence of the Holy Spirit in the Orthodox Church.
There are some in these last days who ask with suspicion, “Where is the holy Spirit in the Orthodox Church?” as though the Church of the Apostles had been forsaken, as though the Holy Spirit had fled from His temple. But this thought is not from God. It is the whisper of forgetfulness, the shadow of ignorance. For the Holy Spirit has never no, not for the blink of an eye departed from the Orthodox Church.
Let us, then, declare the glory of the Holy Spirit, and lay bare the works He performs in the bosom of the One, Holy, Universal, and Apostolic Church. Let every tongue that accuses be silenced, and let every ear that loves truth be opened!
I. The Holy Spirit: Breath and Life of the Church
As the soul animates the body, so the Holy Spirit gives life to the Church. Without the Spirit, the Church is not Church. For as John the Baptist testified, the Church is not a man-made institution, but one born of God by the Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit is the breath that sustains her.
The Holy Spirit is the fire that sanctifies her.
The Holy Spirit is the womb from which she is continually born.
“The Church was born and grew by the power of the Holy Spirit.” Thus, her very existence is not a work of flesh but a continual miracle wrought by divine power.
II. The Holy Spirit Gives Birth to the Believer
When our Lord said to Nicodemus, “Truly, truly I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the Kingdom of God” (John 3:5-6), He was laying the foundation of the Church’s sacramental life. In baptism, the believer is not merely washed, but reborn born from the womb of the Jordan, by the Holy Spirit.
The Orthodox believer does not become a child of God through mere profession, but through the sanctifying grace of the Holy Spirit, received in holy baptism.
The Holy Spirit descends upon the font, and there He regenerates the soul unto life eternal.
This is no symbolic rite, but a mystical transformation. The man who emerges is not the man who entered.
III. The Holy Spirit Inspires Worship
Our Lord said, “The true worshipers shall worship the Father in Spirit and in truth.” (John 4:23) So too, the Apostle Paul proclaims, “We are the circumcision, who worship God in the Spirit and rejoice in Christ Jesus.” (Phil. 3:3)
Thus, the Orthodox Church does not offer carnal sacrifices, nor invent modes of praise to stir the senses. Rather, she worships in the Holy Spirit, with hymns born of divine inspiration, with prayers sanctified by centuries of use, and with Liturgy handed down from the Apostles themselves.
“Be filled with the Spirit,” says the Apostle, “speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord.” (Eph. 5:18-19) What is this if not the Liturgy? What is this if not the Orthodox Church?
Continues 👇🏾