👉🏾👉🏾👉🏾Is the #Holy #Spirit in the #Orthodox #Church
Part 2
1 Beloved children of the Church, heirs of the promise and fellow-citizens of the saints, grace and peace be multiplied to you! On this sacred theme Is the Holy Spirit in the Orthodox Church? let us bend the ear of the heart, that we may behold the riches of the Spirit’s work and give Him fitting glory.
2. The Holy Spirit: Captain and Keeper of Christ’s flock
The Orthodox Church lives and breathes by the Holy Spirit, her Leader and Guardian.
Daily He shepherds the flock through sound doctrine, holy discipline, and gentle guidance. Where the Holy Spirit dwells, there springs forth right worship, clear teaching, and the preservation of the faith once delivered to the saints.
3. The Holy Spirit bars the door to self-appointed shepherds
Because the Church is governed by the Holy Spirit, no one dares thrust himself into the priesthood or the pastoral office by mere ambition. Hear the apostle:
“The Spirit expressly says that in later times some will depart from the faith, giving heed to deceiving spirits and doctrines of demons… forbidding marriage and commanding abstinence from foods which God created to be received with thanksgiving.”
1 Tim 4:1-3
So the Holy Spirit unmasks hypocrisy, cauterizes the seared conscience, and shields God’s people from ravenous wolves.
4. Synods sealed by the Holy Spirit
The very canons and decrees of the Church are not the inventions of men but instructions handed down by the holy apostles under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. Recall the decree of the Apostolic Council:
“It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to lay upon you no greater burden than these necessary things: to abstain from food sacrificed to idols, from blood, from what is strangled, and from fornication. If you keep yourselves from these you will do well.”
Acts 15:28-29
Every council that walks in this path finds blessing; every council that rebels is sternly reproved. Thus the Hily Spirit addressed the seven churches of Asia, ending each message with the cry, “He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches!” (Rev 2-3).
5. The Orthodox ethos: serenity of the Spirit
We who bear the name Orthodox are children of God, led and indwelt by His Holy Spirit. Because He is the Spirit of peace and tranquility, our worship is marked by holy calm:
We pray with collected mind.
We chant psalms in ordered harmony.
We preach the word with sober fervor.
We walk within the temple in meek composure.
Those assemblies that convulse with shouting, shaking, and rolling on the floor while crying, “The Spirit has come upon us!” manifest not the Spirit of God but the tumult of another spirit. “For God is not the author of confusion, but of peace.”
6. The Holy Spirit, Giver of life from the beginning
When the Lord formed Adam from the dust, He “breathed” into his face the breath of life, and man became a living soul (Gen 2:7). Job echoes: “The Spirit of God has made me, and the breath of the Almighty gives me life” (Job 33:4). That same Life-giving Spirit animates every human being.
7. The Holy Spirit, Renewer of fallen nature
Sin shattered that first creation, yet the Holy Spirit wrought a new birth. Saint Paul proclaims that we are “saved… by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit” (Tit 3:5). The Lord Himself declared: “Unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God… You must be born again.” (Jn 3:3-8)
Thus:
We have been born again by the Spirit through faith in Christ (Jn 3; Tit 3).
We have become Christ’s household by the Spirit, for “we were all baptized in one Spirit into one body Jews or Greeks, slaves or free and were all made to drink of one Spirit” (1 Cor 12:13).
In Him every wall of division crumbles; slave and free, male and female, great and small are one family.
Continues 👇🏾