THE PERSON IN THE ORTHODOX TRADITION   o  ·   1  ·   2  ·   3     4     5  ·   6   © Metropolitan Hierotheos of Nafpaktos   THE EXPERIENCE AND TERMINOLOGY OF THE PERSON Contemporary views of interpersonal relations The Patristic experience and terminology of the person God is experience The vision of God and the theology of the Holy Trinity The formation of the terms essence, hypostasis, person The weakness of theological terms Correlation of triadology with anthropology and sociology Conclusion   [ BACK ] THE EXPERIENCE AND TERMINOLOGY OF THE PERSON

The holy Fathers applied the term person-hypostasis to the Trinitarian God in their struggle against the heretics, who were the first to use the term, but in another perspective and with a different meaning. At the same time, however, in association with certain presuppositions the Fathers used the term person-hypostasis also for man.

As I studied this subject I found that today there are theologians who express erroneous views when they speak of the person. Some give the impression that when the holy Fathers used the term hypostasis-person for the Trinitarian God, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, they were doing it with philosophical thinking and thus expanding philosophy. It is indeed a fact that through the theological intervention of the Fathers the philosophical discussion about the person gained more substantial interest, and that thus through theology we have a reassessment of the concept of the person and a development of this terminology in a wider sense. But it must be made clear that the Fathers did not do this work by the criteria and methods of philosophy. They moved in a different perspective and on a different plane.

Likewise some other theologians are making another mistake. They are transferring the whole discussion about the person to an anthropological, ecclesiological and social plane, and in some way are confusing it with the abstract idea of “personality” used in psychology. In other words, they are trying to include anthropology, ecclesiology and sociology within the study of the Trinity. In some way they are confusing what concerns the Holy Trinity with created reality.

I think that this too is a serious mistake, because, as is taught in Orthodox theology, there is a confused difference between created and uncreated. There is no resemblance between them. This must be said continuously because many errors are being made in different ways. Man can reach deification, but by grace and not by nature, by transformation and not in essence.

In what follows we shall examine some of those views, because this will also help us to see the term hypostasis-person more clearly from the Orthodox standpoint.

We have said that there are some theologians who apply the teaching of the holy Fathers about the person to created realities, whereas the Fathers formulated it in relation to the uncreated God. I have the impression that this absolute transfer, without the necessary explanations, creates many problems. To be sure, I have also pointed out at other times that the holy Fathers have used the term ‘person’ also for man, but in their whole theology they also define the presuppositions. The error of the contemporary theologians lies in the fact that not all that is said by the Fathers about the person, in their effort to express by this term the experience of divine Revelation about the Trinitarian God, can be fully applied to man and society.

I could mention as examples some contemporary “schools” which make this mistake. But allow me not to do so, for two basic reasons.

First, because such views are supported by many in the country where we are and no one knows absolutely who introduced them and who are the borrowers. Of course in a special study one can come to some conclusions, since some who are speaking about these subjects are introducing into our country terminology and analyses made by various theologians and philosophers of the West. From personal studies I have come to the conclusion that the anthropological and sociological view of the Holy Trinity came from the Russian theologians of the Diaspora, mainly those living in Paris, and were brought from there into our country. Some of our own theologians, frustrated by the moralising and pietistic atmosphere which prevailed here, were excited by these analyses and, not knowing the theology of the holy Fathers, brought them into our country. Furthermore, some of them defined the characteristics of the person under the influence of the foreign philosophy which is called existentialist. So today there are many champions and supporters of these theories. One can say that so-called “Parisian theology” has become fashionable.

Second, I shall not undertake to list the particular “schools”, because I do not wish to give the impression that I am making a criticism of the individual theologians. In fact it is not in my character to engage in negative criticism. What interests me is to do positive work, always presenting the interpretation of the holy Fathers in a positive way.

So without making special references to particular theologians, I would like to set out the most important imputation of the meaning of the person from the uncreated God to the created realities, which is being done unconditionally, without the necessary presuppositions.

Many are maintaining that the Church is an image of the Holy Trinity and trying to make their theological analyses within this perspective, arriving at some conclusions which indeed are sound in themselves. That is to say, using the theology of the relations between the Persons of the Holy Trinity, they analyse the relations between the local Churches. I have the impression that some of their conclusions, such as that every local Church is a whole Church without the unity of the local Churches being broken, are sound, but we can never arrive at absolute correlations between the Churches and the Persons of the Holy Trinity. And this is simply because the Church is not an image of the Holy Trinity, but the Body of Christ. True, Christ is one of the Trinity. And this always united with the Father and the Holy Spirit, but it is clearly said in Holy Scripture and the patristic texts that the Church is the Body of Christ. The Church receives the energy of the Trinitarian God. In the Church we participate in the uncreated energy of the Trinitarian God, but the Church is the Body of Christ and not an image of the Holy Trinity.

By extension there are many who say that man is an image of the Holy Trinity. And this, I think, when taken unchanged from Trinitarian theology and applied to anthropology, creates many problems.

In the first place, we know that man is created in the image of God. ‘In the image’, as it appears in the patristic teaching, has a different meaning from the “image”. ‘In the image’ has one meaning and ‘the image’ has another. Christ is the Image of the invisible God (Col. 1,15). Man is in the image of God; that is to say, he is an image of an Image1. Christ is the archetype and prototype of the creation of man. Man is an initiate and worshipper of the Holy Trinity. This is why, as Athanasios the Great affirms, the Word was made man. Since He is the archetype of the first creation, He also had to be the archetype of the new creation and re-formation2.

The view that man is in the image of the Trinitarian God is a confusion of the teaching which we find in the works of the holy Fathers, that man was created by the energy of the Trinitarian God, that he has a threefold nature, nous, word, spirit and that, living within the Church, he attains participation in the uncreated energy of the Trinitarian God.

No one doubts that the creation of the whole world, and of course also of man, is a fruit of the energy of the Trinitarian God, since “the Father does all things through the Son in the Holy Spirit”. Likewise it is seen in the teaching of the holy Fathers that man has a threefold nature, for he has nous, word, and spirit. To be sure, at this point too there is need for special attention, because the nous, word and spirit in man are not individual hypostases, but energies of the soul, in which case they are not to be identified with the Trinitarian God. And of course no one denies that in our life in the Church we commune and partake of the energy of the Trinitarian God. Since the energy of the Persons of the Holy Trinity is common to the Three, and the uncreated energy is energy of the uncreated essence, and is partaken of “in the Person of Jesus Christ”, because the one acting is the person, therefore man can become an initiate and worshipper of the Holy Trinity.

But all these things must not distort the view that man is an image of Christ, that Christ is the prototype and archetype of creation, that man is united with the Godman Christ, living in the Church, and it is through Christ that he partakes of the uncreated energy of the Trinitarian God.

I do not propose to complete the analysis at this point, because we cannot apply fully the teaching about the Persons of the Holy Trinity to anthropology, which will be studied in another section. What must be noted from the beginning is that it is not possible for the study of the Three Persons to be carried over to the anthropological study of the person.

Such an erroneous anthropology derived from the study of the Holy Trinity also leads to an erroneous sociology. Some people extend the teaching of the Fathers about the Persons of the Holy Trinity both to human society and even to marriage. They think that the way in which the Persons of the Holy Trinity are united applies both to human society and to marriage. There is talk about interpersonal relations according to the prototype of the Trinitarian God.

I think that this position is erroneous, since, as we have said, there is no identity between the uncreated and the created. The invocation of the Trinitarian God at the beginning of the Constitution does not indicate that the relations between people should have in view the relationship between the Persons of the Holy Trinity, but simply that we seek the grace and energy of the Trinitarian God.

We can also say the same thing on the subject of marriage. The love and freedom which should exist between the partners must be correlated with the Trinitarian God. Of course the fact that the love between the partners should not abolish their freedom, nor should love and unity be abolished in the name of the freedom of each, is not to be correlated with the Trinitarian God, very simply because God’s love is not personal, but it is His enhypostatic energy.

To be sure, the greatest mistake is made when the human passions and carnal relations, which have to do with states after the fall and will some time be abolished, are brought into the relationship of the Persons of the Holy Trinity. I think that such views constitute “hybris” in the ancient sense of the word, which is followed by the “penalty”.

What we have said so far is not intended to exhaust the subject, but simply to define it. A broader analysis and various notes will come in what follows, because we shall see how the holy Fathers spoke about the Trinitarian God and how they spoke about man, as well as the fact that what is said about the Holy Trinity cannot be carried over unconditionally to anthropology and sociology.

Although the holy Fathers, and especially the Fathers of the fourth century, the time of this discussion between the theologians about the person-hypostasis, while they were studying Hellenic philosophy, they were not philosophising when they were studying and defining the meaning of the person. Therefore they were not philosophers, but theologians in the full sense of the word.

As Metropolitan John Zizioulas of Pergamos notes, in the early Church, at the time when an approach was being made between Hellenism and Christianity, there were two traditions. One can be called a Hellenising of Christianity, also impersonated by the heretics, and the other a Christianised Hellenism, and in the persons of the holy Fathers3.

In fact the heretics had been strongly influenced by classical metaphysics and were trying to express the dogmatic truth within the perspective of philosophy. The heretics of that period were not slow-witted but were philosophising. That is why we can state that not everyone who falls into error is heretical. He may be foolish but not heretical, because the heretics had philosophical presuppositions.

For example, we can mention that the Arians made the distinction between essence and energy, but said that the Logos is not begotten of the Father but is a result of His energy. Thus they identify the uncreated energy with the mode of being. And since the result of the energy, that is to say, what has been energised, is creation, therefore they conclude that the Logos is a creation of God. Thus it is an attempt of logic to define this theological truth, without the revealing experience.

The holy Fathers, as can be seen in all their writings, attained the experience of God, they saw God in His glory, they lived Pentecost. Having the experience of revelation and knowing the terminology which philosophers and heretics were using, they made God-inspired formulations with the available terminology, giving it a different content.

So we must make a clear distinction between experience and terminology. Experience is something stable and unchangeable, while terminology changes with time. A change in terminology does not imply a change of experience.

The difference between experience and terminology is like that between partaking of the uncreated energy and glory of God and formulating it in created words and concepts. St. Gregory the Theologian stresses the phrase: “It is impossible to express God, and yet more impossible to conceive Him”4. He uses the word ‘conceive’ in the sense of ‘cogitate’. No one can think logically of God. And when one participates in His glory, then it is even more impossible to formulate. This relates to the Apostle Paul’s experience of revelation, about which he wrote: “And I know such a man - whether in the body or out of the body I do not know, God knows - how he was caught up into Paradise and heard inexpressible words, which it is not lawful for a man to utter”(2 Cor. 12, 3-4).

Thus we understand well that the dogma is a different thing from the mystery. When the saints reach the experience of the glory of God they experience that God is light, but even then God remains a mystery, because they cannot attain union in substance. The saints’ union with God, during the experience, is in energy and not in substance. That is why the Holy Trinity, even in this experience, remains a mystery. What can be understood logically is the dogma about the mystery of the Holy Trinity. Thus the participation in the uncreated glory of God, which remains a mystery even with the vision of it, is expressed by the holy Fathers in terminology and dogma which can be understood. Mystery and dogma about the mystery of the Holy Trinity are two different things. This is why the Fathers make different use of the terminology in every epoch. But when the particular meaning of the terminology is defined in an Ecumenical Council, then it remains unalterable.

The philosophy of the heretics differs clearly from the theology of the holy Fathers in that the theories of the heretics cannot be proven and verified, while the theories of the saints are verified. For example, we must say that the theory of the world of ideas, as it was put forward by classical metaphysics, cannot be confirmed scientifically. That is why today too classical metaphysics is not valid. However, the teaching of the saints that God is light is confirmed by experience. That is to say, anyone who wants to discover whether it is true follows the method which the Fathers lived, and he can, God willing, reach the same results. And this is proven medically as well, because a man in this condition is sanctified, and his body remains uncorrupted. This means that corruption is transcended, a thing which can also be attested by medical science itself.

Therefore the dogma expresses and formulates the experience of revelation, but the understanding of the dogma never means that the mystery of the Holy Trinity is also understood in parallel, for this mystery is inexpressible and incomprehensible even in its manifestation. The Fathers speak of the fact that the saints see invisibly and hear inaudibly and participate unpartakingly and understand God “unwittingly”.

These basic truths which have been set out thus far will be analysed in greater breadth in what follows. But they needed to be said initially in order for us to be able to understand better what is to follow.

In the whole biblico-patristic tradition it is evident that God is not an object of conjecture and logical understanding, but a matter of participation, of revelation, that is to say, of experience. Of course when we speak of experience we do not mean individual experience such as we find in Eastern religions, but the experience of the Church, as the Prophets, Apostles and the deified of all times lived it. The philosophers usually make conjectures with their minds, while the Fathers formulate what they have seen and heard as far as it can be formulated. In hesychastic theology, as St. Gregory Palamas expresses it and develops it more extensively, one can see the method which the saints employ in order to participate in the glory of God. They renounce association with the world and creation, they live the apophatic experience, that is to say, the nous returns to the heart from its diffusion in the surroundings and created things, and from there it ascends to God. St. Gregory of Nyssa, in his work “The life of Moses” presents this journey analytically5. 

The fourth century Fathers, in parallel with the dogmatic discussion about the Persons of the Holy Trinity, spoke of the way of experiencing and of participating in the Trinitarian God. And this way is purification of the heart. But they did not do this under the influence of neo-platonism, as some people wish to maintain. The whole of Holy Scripture speaks of man’s purification and his participation in the glory of God. It is true that deification is not spoken of in Holy Scripture, but other terms are found there, such as glorification, likeness, etc.

Furthermore, there is a great difference between the teaching of the Holy Fathers and neo-platonism on the subject of purification and illumination. For the neo-Platonists, purification is the discarding of what pertains to desire and anger, and illumination is knowledge of the archetypes of beings. In general, salvation is the soul’s return to the world of ideas. These views have nothing to do with the holy Fathers’ teaching about purification and illumination. For the holy Fathers purification is the dismissal of all evil thoughts from the heart and their sojourn in the rational, and illumination is enlightenment of the nous by the grace of God. The method of purification and illumination of the heart and nous is called hesychasm.

It is said from this point of view that the holy Fathers were not philosophers, but theologians and men who saw God. They did not make conjectures or imagine God, but they saw Him, because they had purified themselves from passions and had discarded fantasy. It is not possible to attain the vision of God without experiencing that God is uncreated, that is to say, that He is not to be confused with creatures. Only one who thinks with logic can come to the conclusion that Christ is a creature.

I consider important and orthodox the view of Father John Romanides as he formulated it in a spoken sermon. When he makes the distinction between dogma and experience and analyses how dogma and experience are two different things, he says:

“He who reaches deification knows experientially that the Word is uncreated, that glory is uncreated, that the Father is uncreated, the Spirit is uncreated, the Spirit is a hypostasis, etc. These things belong to experiential theology.

“In which case another thing is the experience of deification which man has before him, living it within the mystery of the Holy Trinity, and he knows that the glory is uncreated, the energies are uncreated, that he does not see essence, in the glory he distinguishes the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.

“It is true that the names themselves are not God. One sees light, light, light. Light of light, light incarnate. And another light not incarnate, which is light from the first light. So the two lights are from the first light, the one has become incarnate, the other is not incarnate. And this is the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.

“And the fact that the one light became incarnate and the other two lights are not incarnate, means that the three lights differ from one another in this way. This requires some formulation, expression, so that the catechumen, who has no experience of deification, may know about this matter”.

This teaching of Father John Romanides, which I consider very important and orthodox, is quite interesting. He shows that experience and its formulation in words, for anti-heretical but also catechetical reasons, are two different things. Sometimes the experience is formulated in order to combat the heresies and sometimes to catechise the catechumens, to give them the right orientation so that they may some time arrive at their own experience. For if one does not take the appropriate medicines, one can never be cured. And if one does not walk the true path, one will never end at the place where one wants to go.

Thus in the vision of God the saints see three lights. At the same time they also see the difference between them, because one is the source of the other two, the second comes from the first, but has a human nature, so that the body too is a source of the uncreated Light, and the third comes from the first, but has no human nature. They have formulated this experience in the terms unbegotten, begotten and proceeding, which are the modes of being of the Persons of the Holy Trinity. Therefore the phrase “mode of being”, which the Fathers use, has no relationship with the Sabellian views. They formulated this experience in the terms person-hypostasis, mode of being, etc. We shall look at this further on.

We can look at some examples of this kind in Holy Scripture.

First we should remind ourselves of the great event of Christ’s Transfiguration. The three disciples on Mount Tabor saw the Threefold God as light. The Godman Christ “was transfigured before them. His face shone like the sun” (Matt. 17,2). Here we observe that the second Person of the Holy Trinity, Who assumed human nature, showed His divinity, that is to say, that He is light, like the Father, as well as the fact that His human body is also a source of uncreated grace. At the same time the disciples also saw a “bright cloud” which “overshadowed them” (Matt. 17,5), and this cloud, according to the teaching of St. Gregory Palamas, is the presence of the Holy Spirit. Thus also the Holy Spirit is light, but has no body, not being incarnate. Moreover in the cloud the voice of the Father was heard saying “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. Hear Him” (Matt. 17,5). This is the greatest moment of the vision of God. The Father is hidden in the bright cloud and proclaims that Christ is His Son, that is to say, was begotten of Him.

In the event of the Transfiguration of Christ we meet with the truth that God is a matter of experience, an experience of the threefoldness of God as three lights, that although they have the same energy, which shows the same uncreated nature, at the same time there is also a difference. Christ has human nature, the Father is the source of the two others, and the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father but has no human nature.

We find the same experience also in the Protomartyr Stephen, during his defence before the Sanhedrin of the Jews. It is written in the Acts of the Apostles: “But he, being full of the Holy Spirit, gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God, and said, ‘Look! I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God!’” (Acts 7, 55-56).

The Protomartyr Stephen saw the glory of God. This glory is the light. At the same time he saw Jesus, the Son of man, that is, the Godman Christ “at the right hand of God”, the Second Person of the Holy Trinity, Who was made man. The source of the Second Person is the first glory, the Father. It is in this sense that we should interpret “on the right hand of the Father”. It shows that the Father is the source of the birth of the Son. And of course the Protomartyr Stephen saw the glory of God, Jesus Christ in glory, that is to say he saw this great vision of God “being full of the Holy Spirit”. Through communion with the Holy Spirit, through the light of the Holy Spirit he saw the glory of God. The words of the Psalm apply here: “In Thy light shall we see light” (Psalm 36, 9).

It is within this perspective that we should look at many passages of Holy Scripture which speak of the fact that God is light. I would like just to cite the passage in James the brother of God, in which he says: “Do not be deceived, my beloved brethren: every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights” (James 1,17).

The holy Fathers had the same experience as the Holy Apostles. Moreover, St. Gregory Palamas’ words are well known: “Is it not this, that saving perfection, in the realm of knowledge and doctrine, consists in having the same mind as the Prophets, Apostles and all the Fathers, through whom the Holy Spirit bears witness that they spoke about God and His creatures”6.

St. Gregory the Theologian and Basil the Great, who contributed to the final use of the terms person and hypostasis, had great experiences, as is seen clearly in their works.

What should be emphasised is that Basil the Great, using the terms of the philosophers and philosophisers and charging them with another meaning and sense, had personal experience. He did not proceed by conjecture, but was guided by the revelation which he had received from God. This is why these terms with their special characteristic no longer change significantly.

But I would like in what follows to go in greater detail into the teaching of St. Symeon the New Theologian, which shows that the saints theologise not in a philosophical way, but through experience. They speak within the Revelation. The things to which we shall refer are characteristic, because they establish just what is orthodox theology, that it differs from philosophy, and moreover they show how to theologise in an orthodox way.

In the course of the life of the Church the theology of the revelation of the Holy Trinity has been formulated in words in order, on the one hand, to preserve this revealed truth, and on the other hand to combat heretical teaching. This is precisely the task of the holy Fathers of the Church.

There is a long history with regard to the formulation of the terms for the Triune God. We shall not undertake a detailed analysis of this subject but will set out the most basic points, showing how the terms have been differentiated through the ages.

The New Testament speaks of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, for Christ spoke in this way. It says 'Father', because He is the source of the being of the Son and the Holy Spirit. It says 'Son', because He was begotten before all ages from the Father, and the it says 'Holy Spirit', because He proceeded from the Father, not by generation, but by procession. Christ calls Himself Son of God, and calls the third Person of the Holy Trinity, Holy Spirit.

Likewise in the New Testament, especially in the Gospel of John, the Son is characterised as Word, because He manifests the purpose and will of the Heavenly Father. It is known that John the Evangelist had known the term 'logos' (word) both in the Jewish Synagogue and in the Hellenistic environment, but he uses it in a different sense, meaning the Son of God.

In the Old Testament, among the many names of God there are two basic ones: Elohim and Yahweh. The first means the hidden God, while the second means the God revealed to the Prophets. Yahweh is the Son of God, the Word of the Father, because all the theophanies in the Old Testament are manifestations and revelations of the Word without flesh. And so these two names were used by the early Christians as well.

The Gnostics of the second century were constantly concerned with the creation of the world and with the evil that exists in it. Under the influence of philosophy, they attributed the evil in the world to an inferior God who created it. So they were making a distinction between the good God and the evil God. In order to do away with this view, various Monarchians employed the word 'person' for God in the sense of the mask. Thus Sabellios formulated the view that God is one, but he used three different person-masks. In the Old Testament He was manifested as Father, in the New Testament as Son, and in the life of the Church as Holy Spirit. In order to do away with the view of a higher and a lower god, they arrived at another heretical teaching.

The holy Fathers found themselves in this atmosphere, and in order to preserve the truth of revelation about the Holy Spirit, but also in order to answer the heretics who were using terms from philosophy, they conveyed the revelation in the same terms, but gave them a different content. And just here we see the two "schools" in patristic terminology. The first is the Alexandrian school, which identified 'ousia', substance, with hypostasis-person and set up the Creed in the First Ecumenical Council on the basis of this terminology. And the second is the Cappadocian school, which distinguished hypostasis from 'ousia', essence, and defined the statements of the Second Ecumenical Council.

In the writings of Athanasios the Great, 'ousia' was identified with hypostasis. Moreover he himself contributed to the formulation of the faith in the First Ecumenical Council, where the Creed reads: "And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, only-begotten of the Father, which means 'from the ousia' of the Father". And towards the end there is condemnation of those who have erroneous ideas, such as that the Son "is alleged to be of another hypostasis or 'ousia'". Here it seems that the 'ousia' was identified with hypostasis, obviously because the consubstantiality of the Son with the Father had to be emphasised.

'Ousia' came to be identified with hypostasis mainly through Athanasios the Great, whose purpose was to emphasise the consubstantiality of the Father and the Son. Consequently it is used with a purely orthodox meaning, to combat the heretical teaching that the Son is a creature and does not have the same substance as the Father.

Athanasios the Great supported this decision of the First Ecumenical Council, formulating the view that 'hypostasis' and 'ousia' mean the same thing, since both mean 'existence': "for hypostasis and ousia are existence". The hypostasis is ousia and its meaning is being, which is interpreted as existence. He puts it characteristically: "The hypostasis is 'ousia' and it has no other meaning than this being, which Jeremiah calls existence, saying: "and they did not hear the voice of existence". Indeed Athanasios the Great reproaches the heretics who ventured to write "that it ought not to be said that the Son has essence or hypostasis".

It is clear that in the teaching of Athanasios the Great the hypostasis is identical with ousia. This comes about in his attempt to confirm the revealed truth that the Son has the same essence as the Father and is true God. Moreover, the term hypostasis is derived from the words for 'stand' and 'under' and means existence, the deepest being of being, and the term 'ousia', which comes from the participle being of the verb 'to be', again indicates existence.

However, after the first Ecumenical Council the heretics used the terms 'ousia' and hypostasis differently, because they used hypostasis-person in the sense of the mask and ended by emphasising that the Son and the Father have the same hypostasis. While in the time of Athanasios the Great, the identification of 'ousia' and hypostasis supported the teaching of the divinity of Christ as consubstantial with the Father, later the identification of 'ousia' with hypostasis ended in the existence of one God, who presents Himself with different masks. This is why it was necessary to separate the term 'ousia' from the term 'hypostasis-person'.

This work was done by the Cappadocian Fathers, such as Basil the Great, St. Gregory the Theologian and St. Gregory of Nyssa. They separated 'ousia' from 'hypostasis' and in this way changed the terminology of the Creed. Therefore in the final text of the Creed the sentences in which it appeared that the essence was identified with the person were eliminated and the difference between these concepts was formulated.

In the epistle of the Council of 382 the holy Fathers defined clearly : "To believe in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, that is to say in the divinity and power and single essence of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, and their equal honour and rank and co-eternal sovereignty, in three most perfect hypostases, three perfect Persons".

This text contains the final teaching of the Church about the Persons of the Holy Trinity. It says that they have one 'ousia', that is to say, they are consubstantial. Likewise it makes the three perfect hypostases identical with the three perfect Persons. This was done finally in order to avoid the heretical teachings of Sabellios, who confused the hypostases and destroyed their distinctions, and to avoid the blasphemous ideas of the Eunomians, Arians and those who denied the divinity of the Spirit and broke up the substance or nature or divinity of the Persons of the Holy Trinity by adding to the Holy Trinity another nature, created and different in substance.

Therefore the change of terminology between the First and Second Ecumenical Councils did not happen because of any change in the teaching of the Church about the Holy Trinity, but because the same revealed experience had to be protected from various heretical teachings. In the First Ecumenical Council the essence is identified with the hypostasis in order to emphasise the divinity of the Logos against Arius, and in the Second Ecumenical Council the essence is separated from the hypostasis in order to emphasise once again the divinity of the Persons of the Holy Trinity against Sabellios and other heretics. So we have a change of terminology and no change of theology.

In what follows I would like to add the teaching of St. Basil the Great about the difference between 'ousia' and hypostasis. To be sure, we have met this difference also in other Cappadocian Fathers, for instance in St. Gregory the Theologian and St. Gregory of Nyssa, but I would like to speak only of St. Basil the Great, in whom this orthodox teaching is summarised.

Characteristically St. Basil the Great emphasises that hypostasis and essence are not the same thing. The difference between the essence and the hypostasis is the same as that between the general and the individual. Thus the term 'ousia' characterises and expresses what is common, such as goodness and divinity, while the hypostasis characterises the particularity of fatherhood, sonship and sanctifying power.

Therefore "ousia and hypostasis are distinct in that the general is distinct from the particular". So in the Holy Trinity we confess one substance for the Godhead, but we confess a person that is particular". What is general is the Godhead, while fatherhood, sonship and the procession of the Holy Spirit are particular. In this way "throughout the whole, both unity is preserved in the confession of the one Godhead, and that which is peculiar to the Persons is confessed in the distinction made in the characteristics attributed to each".

It is characteristic of St. Basil when he says that by this usage of terms the unity is preserved and the distinction of the Persons is confessed. Actually, the terminology is for the preservation of the experience of revelation. The deified experience seeing the uncreated energy which proceeds from the Persons of the Holy Trinity, but they do not see the essence as well. Thus they know from experience that in spite of the unity of nature and substance, in spite of the coessentiality, there are different Persons. This experience is formulated in terms of 'ousia' and hypostasis-person.

We find a broad analysis of these topics in all the subsequent periods. I would like to mention the teaching of Presbyter Theodoros of Raith, who in his "On preparation" made excellent observations, developing naturally the teachings of the Cappadocian Fathers.

First he makes an etymological and theological analysis of the terms 'ousia' and 'nature' and 'hypostasis' and 'person'. He says that the name 'essence' (ousia) derives from the verb 'to be' and denotes that which is, that which exists. The term 'ousia' is used chiefly to name that which exists independently and does not have being for and in another. Then again the word 'nature' is derived from "to have been produced", and means "to exist". Therefore the terms essence and nature mean the same thing, because the first comes from being and the second from having been produced, and both mean existence. The hypostasis is a thing "subsisting and essential, in which the sum total of events subsists as by one underlying thing and energy". The word 'hypostasis' comes "from subsisting and wholly existing and supporting". 'Person' also characterises that which makes its presence wholly manifest by its own actions and characteristic features, and at the same time is distinguished by its coessentiality.

While etymologically the terms essence, nature, and hypostasis mean almost the same things, theologically they have differences as the holy Fathers define them. According to Theodore of Raith, while essence and hypostasis mean the same thing, there is a clear difference, because essence means only that which is, while the hypostasis not only means that which is, but also "how and what sort of being it happens to have. Therefore the essence manifests what is common, while hypostasis manifests the individual. The hypostasis is distinguished from essence in the sum total of happenings.

St. John of Damaskos, justifying theologically the use of the terms 'essence' and 'hypostasis', says that by the three hypostases we acknowledge "the uncompounded and without confusion", by the consubstantiality of hypostases we recognise the indivisibility and existence of one God, that is to say we recognise the identity of will, energy, power, authority and movement.

It is not necessary to go on to the other Fathers of the Church. Through these basic teachings it can be seen that when the Church used different terms to formulate the dogma of the Holy Trinity, it was not done to develop the philosophy, nor simply to understand the dogma theoretically and logically, but to formulate the Revelation and to deter the error of the heretics. The holy Fathers were not philosophers, but theologians, people who see God. The experience that they had was superior to logical elaboration.

We can take one example in order to make this more understandable. A scientific investigator in his laboratory can discover the medicine for the cure of an illness. But after this he uses a standard term to give notice of the medicine. But if later through other research and further special conversations the terminology of the medicine changes, it does not also necessitate a change in the constituents of the medicine.

We can confirm that the same thing holds with regard to the dogmas of the Church. The holy Fathers, as we are repeatedly saying in this text, saw the glory of God, attained experience and existential knowledge of the Holy Trinity and then formulated this experience in words, in order to insure it against distortion by the heretics.

The holy Fathers know clearly that experience transcends logic and rational formulation. This means that the terms can never fully express the truth. Therefore they are limited to signifying and suggesting it. The Apostle Paul says that he heard "inexpressible words, which it is not lawful for a man to utter" (2 Cor. 12,4). The inexpressible and uncreated words are the Revelation, which is formulated in created words and meanings.

Although the holy Fathers formulate their experience in words, they clearly deny that they understand it logically. This is a very significant point, and we must develop it further.

First we must speak of the teaching of Basil the Great that we know God from His energies but we do not know His essence. This distinction was made by St. Basil in opposition to the Anomians, who maintained that the essence of the Son is dissimilar and therefore lower than the essence of the Father. Aetios and then his pupil Eunomios, using Aristotle's logic and method, identified the essence of the Father with His unbegottenness. As unbegotten, the essence is also indivisible, which means that it cannot be shared with other beings through generation. On these grounds they downgraded Christ and at the same time proclaimed that man knows the essence of God, since man knows what God also knows. The Anomians were extreme Arians.

St. Basil confronts this great theological problem and concretely answers the question put by the Anomians: "Do you worship what you know or what you do not know?" This question was designed to create confusion in the Orthodox, because if they answered that they worship what they know, then they would be called on to define what the essence is, while if they answered that they did not know the essence, then they would be accused of worshipping something that they did not know, whereupon they would be regarded as agnostics.

In answer to this question Basil the Great makes the clear distinction between essence and energies in God. I do not propose to develop this very important theme, which St. Gregory Palamas was later to analyse extensively, but I will emphasise one interesting point which St. Basil stresses. He says that there is a difference between "the fact that God is" and "what He is". We know that God exists, but we do not know what is the essence of God, because it is beyond our minds. "But I do know that He exists, but what His substance is I consider beyond understanding".

This of course does not interfere with man's salvation, for man is saved by faith. And it is enough for faith that man realises that God exists, and He rewards those who seek Him, and not what is His essence, which would be curiosity and would have no bearing on salvation. And indeed St. Basil the Great maintains that to worship is not to comprehend what is the essence of the object of worship, but to comprehend that its essence exists.

No object, nothing exists which does not have energy. Every energy also has its essence, and every essence also has its energy. We recognise that essence exists through its energy. And if energy is created, essence too is created, if energy is uncreated, essence too is uncreated. Therefore we recognise that the uncreated essence exists from its uncreated energies, but we do not recognise what the essence is. Therefore "from the activities is the knowledge, and from the knowledge is the worship".

What is true of God is true by analogy of men. In other words, we both know and do not know other men. We know their characters and qualities, but we do not know their essence, their substance. The same is true of ourselves. St. Basil the Great says: "For I know myself, who I am, but I do not know myself insofar as I am ignorant of my substance".

With regard to God, then, we know God "that He is" as well as "how He is". "How he is" refers to the way of being of each Person of the Holy Trinity. Thus how the Son was begotten of the Father is entirely unknown, just as it is unknown how the Holy Spirit proceeds and how the Father is unbegotten. We know that the Son is begotten and the Holy Spirit proceeds, but we do not know the "how". The knowledge refers to the existence of God, because the deified man knows from experience and from participation in His energies that He exists, just as he also knows it indirectly through what is created, but he does not know at all what is the essence and the way of being of each Person. We confess that we know "what is knowable about God, just as we also know "what escapes our comprehension". The worship of God is born of the knowledge of God, and the knowledge comes from participation in His energies".

And we find the same theology in the other Cappadocian Fathers. I would like particularly to mention here that St. Gregory the Theologian makes a thorough analysis of the fact that man cannot know "the how" of God, that is to say, His way of being. Not only man but also the angels do not know the "how" of the generation of the Son, and the "how" of the proceeding of the Holy Spirit. St. Gregory uses various arguments to refute the logical formulations of the heretics of his time. He finally concludes: "The begetting of God must be honoured by silence. It is a great thing for you to learn that He was begotten. But as to the manner of His generation, we will not admit that even angels can conceive it, much less you". And in another place he says that if man should attempt to understand logically the "how" of the Persons of the Holy Trinity, he would end in madness. St. Gregory writes: "You tell me what is the unbegottenness of the Father, and I will explain to you the physiology of the generation of the Son and the procession of the Spirit, and we shall both be frenzy-stricken for prying into the mystery of God".

St. John of Damaskos has the same perspective when he repeats the thought of Basil the Great that God is knowable in His being and His energies, but entirely unknowable and incomprehensible in His essence. He writes: "Thus it is clear that God exists, but what He is in essence and nature is unknown and beyond understanding".

Thus the deified man who partakes of God's energies knows clearly "that God exists", but he does not know "what He is in essence" or "the manner of being" of the Persons, for these two surpass the limits of human thought. This distinction is significant, because in this way we can understand what is known about God and what is unknown, and the fact that God, while known, remains incomprehensible in His essence. And since the "manner of His being" has a bearing on the mode of being of the Persons, we can say that although we know that the Father is unbegotten and the Holy Spirit proceeds, we do not know how this came about. We know the hypostatic characteristics from the revelation of Christ and the experience of the Revelation in terms of our personal life. But we do not know the manner of the "how".

If we do not look at theology from this basic position, we shall constantly create confusion, and we shall not be able to theologise in a sound and orthodox way.

Since this problem is important, the Fathers regard "apophatic theology" as important. Cataphatic theology derives from 'kata' and the verb 'to say' and means that I define something, whereas apophatic theology is derived from 'away' and 'say', indicating that we avoid defining. Thus, for God we use both terms of cataphatic theology and terms of apophatic theology. We say that God is love, peace, righteousness, goodness etc., because we know it from His essential and enhypostatic energies, but at the same time we say that God is invisible, incomprehensible as to His incomprehensible essence, but also in relation to the effort of human logic to understand Him.

This means that when the saints attain experience of God, in their vision of God and participation in Him, they see very well that God is light. John the Evangelist declares: "God is light and in Him is no darkness at all" (1 John 1,5). But when heretics emerged who maintained that they knew God through their occupation with logic, then the holy Fathers stressed that in the 'light' of human knowledge, God is darkness. In order to confront other heretics who said that they understood and saw the essence of God, the Fathers emphasised that God is a darkness beyond light.

We see this in all the names of God. The essence of God is spoken of, but when we confuse God's essence with created essence, with realities that we know, then it is characterised as supra-essential essence. St. John of Damaskos says that when we are going to declare what is the essence of some person or thing, we have to say what it is, and not what it is not. However, in the case of God, it is impossible to say what He is in His essence. Therefore "it is better to discuss Him by abstraction from all things whatsoever". And this is because God is not like the things that are, not because He is not a being, "but because He transcends all beings and being itself". Thus, according to the apt observation and expression of St. John of Damaskos, "The Divinity, then, is limitless and incomprehensible, and this, His limitlessness and incomprehensibility, is all that can be understood about Him".

The things that we say cataphatically about God clarify things about the nature of God and not His nature itself. That is to say the names of God express His essential energies. But also the things said cataphatically are not confirmed apophatically, because God is not like any of the created things. "There are, moreover, things that are stated affirmatively of God, but which have the force of extreme negation".

St. Dionysios the Areopagite says that everything divine which is revealed to us is known only through participation in them. That is to say, man participates in the uncreated energies of God and in this way knows God. Although we know these things through participation, "their actual nature, what they are ultimately in their own source and ground, is beyond nous and beyond all being and knowledge". What is true of the uncreated energies, is also true of the mode of being of the Persons of the Holy Trinity. That is to say, through Christ's revelation we know that the Father is the originating source of the Godhead, and that the Son and the Spirit are, "so to speak, divine offshoots, the flowering and transcendent lights of the divinity", but again "we can neither say nor understand how this could be so". This means that man knows that the Persons of the Holy Trinity, which are consubstantial, exist, just as he also knows by Revelation that they differ in hypostatic qualities, but it is not possible to understand and explain the way in which they exist. He knows from Revelation that the Son is begotten of the Father, but he cannot rationally understand how.

St. Maximos the Confessor has this same view when he says that God is incomprehensible, because His existence defies all definition of time or manner, altogether excluding "when and how He is". God is also said to be essence, but if we associate this notion with human and created notions, God is not essence. St. Maximus says clearly that "God is not a being either in the general or in any specific sense of the word". In the same way He is not energy "in the general or any specific sense".

This is also true of all the meanings. We know that God is one and three, that is, one essence and three Persons. But if one associates these meanings with human created meanings, then God is neither one nor three. Thus apophatic theology is the Golgotha of human logic, because it aims to lead man to personal participation in God, and not simply to the logical understanding of God.

All that we have said so far shows that although we know from Revelation and experience "that God is", we do not know "what He is" and "how He is". We speak about the fact that God is Person and that the Persons of the Holy Trinity interpenetrate one another, but we must not confuse this with created human realities, nor should we transfer the triadology to anthropology and sociology. I shall develop this subject in the next section as well, because I consider it very important. It is my opinion that it is an impiety and perhaps a heresy to mix the uncreated with the created without the necessary presuppositions.

But before I close this section we must make one distinction. Speaking of apophatic theology and the fact that God is incomprehensible and unknowable to man in His nature and His essence, we must not think that we are ending in agnosticism. The scholastics, interpreting the teaching of St. Dionysios the Areopagite by logical arguments, came to such conclusions. Barlaam expressed a similar view, and therefore St. Gregory Palamas confronted it at its foundation.

The dialogue between St. Gregory Palamas and Barlaam has sufficient interest at this point as well. St. Gregory, an Orthodox theologian, restrained the moderate agnosticism of Barlaam and underlined the truth of the Church about what is known and unknown about God.

Barlaam's appearing in the East was mainly associated with the dialogue between orthodox and Latins about the procession of the Holy Spirit. Barlaam, representing the orthodox side, placed the subject on sound foundations, following the theology of Photius, but it was clear that he had a different starting-point. Barlaam denied the possibility of formulating demonstrable judgements about theological topics and relied for the solution on the authenticity of Revelation. Starting from this notion he considered that there is nothing stable in the theological opinions, there are inconsistencies and that is why there have had to be dialectical syllogisms in order to resolve the conflicts. He tried in this way to deal with the theological difference between the two Churches on the subject of the procession of the Holy Spirit in order for unity of the Churches to be achieved.

St. Gregory Palamas, after his orthodox presentation of the theology of the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Father, insisted strongly on how this truth can be known. He emphasised particularly the value of illustrative syllogism, and not of dialectical judgements. The use of the dialectical method and the rejection of illustrative syllogisms creates many problems, because it leads to agnosticism. If we have no illustrations of the existence and illumination of God, then God remains unknown to man.

St. Gregory analyses that the pure in heart know through "the evidence of the holy illumination inborn in them that God exists and what light is, or rather what is the source of noetic and immaterial light". The deified, illuminated by the light of God have proofs and evidence that God exists and is manifested as light. This theophany comes about by the grace of God, which illuminates them. All who have not attained the vision of God, attain knowledge of these things through those who see God. Through these witnesses there is unerring proof that a God exists who foresees, is all-powerful, etc.

The saints have experience of this Revelation and know that God exists, and they also know His personal characteristics. However, they can also use demonstrative and not dialectical syllogisms to describe this Revelation. Therefore in a letter to Akindynos he analyses exhaustively the difference between illustrative and dialectical syllogisms, and also tells how we use illustrative syllogisms.

The illustrative syllogism speaks "about what is necessary and ever being and true being and always present as well". That is to say that these are firm principles which are related to revelation and truth. Therefore it does not conjecture, does not feel the need to receive the opposing views of the two sides in order to reconcile them, and in general it proceeds from what is true and right. Since the deified man has experience "that God exists", then, having this unshakeable truth of revelation, he formulates it in syllogisms. Orthodox theology moves in this atmosphere, and this is why we find many thoughts and syllogisms in the works of the holy Fathers, without their deviating from the truth of revelation.

By contrast, dialectical syllogism concerns itself "with the glorious and probable and what once was and now is, now is not, sometimes true, sometimes not". He who uses the dialectical syllogism, as the philosophers do, is using the dialogue to persuade his interlocutors, and indeed he is obliged to receive what his interlocutor gives him. The person using dialogue in this way starts from probabilities, which are not true, and sometimes even false.

On theological topics, especially about the dogma concerning the Holy Trinity, not dialectical syllogisms, but illustrative ones are suitable. There cannot be any proof about the essence or nature of God, but as to the other topics relating to the hypostases and energies, we can develop illustrative syllogisms.

St. Gregory Palamas writes: "...but to know illustratively and share divine science with others through words".

St. Gregory's conclusion is that the Divine is beyond all nous and word and beyond the dialectic, because it is above imagination and knowledge, but also beyond the demonstrable. It is above any syllogistic method, since there is no contact and knowledge. But from the Fathers we have learned "to syllogise about the working of divine things". St. Gregory concludes: "But we approach the divine things in a divine way by the inspired power of the theologians; but they called them illustrative, as was shown above".

In thinking of theological themes, particularly the dogma about the mystery of the Holy Trinity, we should not use human wisdom, but seek the divine in a divine way. And of course the knowledge of the divine is presented illustrative syllogisms and not in dialectical ones, which are associated with probability and logical arguments as proffered by science. It is in these frames that Orthodox theology moves. In the first place, it is connected with Revelation, it is a revealing word into which the deified person, the one who partakes of theosis, is initiated. God reveals Himself and offers true knowledge. Man, in the course of experience, does not think at all, since all the energies of the body are transcended. After the vision of God he has certainty about having seen God, he has no doubt and can formulate this experience logically, that is to say, he can confront all the false opinions with certainty, using illustrative syllogisms. But it must be emphasised that the deified, in spite of the various terms, feel powerless to express things perfectly, because the human word is finite. The experience is without created words and thoughts, but it is formulated with created words and thoughts. So because of the weakness of the terms, and also because of the confusion which the terms associated with created things create, the Fathers arrive at the use of apophatic terms and expressions as well.

In general we can say that we know very well from Revelation that God exists, that He has essence and energies, that He is Threefold, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, that the Father is the source of the other Persons, that the Son is begotten of the Father, that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and is sent by the Son. But we do not know what His essence is, and how the Son is begotten from the Father, and how the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father. This does not mean that we end in agnosticism, since we know the Persons of the Holy Trinity from their uncreated energies. Moreover it is known that God's energies are essential and hypostatic, since energies do not exist without essence, and they do not act apart from Persons. He who acts is the Person.

What has been said I think has demonstrated that the mystery of the Holy Trinity, which is incomprehensible to man, is a different thing from the dogma about the mystery of the Holy Trinity. The mystery of the Holy Trinity is experienced, as far as it is possible for finite human nature; that is to say, one participates in the uncreated energies of the Holy Trinity, but one cannot form apodictic syllogisms about the dogma of the mystery of the Holy Trinity.

All these things were essential for us in order to reach what we have emphasised from the start, that it is not possible for triadology to be absolutely correlated with anthropology and sociology. We cannot interpret the relationships between men according to the way of being of the Persons of the Holy Trinity. Since the way of being of the Persons of the Holy Trinity is unknown, apart from the fact that we know the hypostatic characteristics of each Person, how then is it possible for this way of being of the Persons of the Trinitarian God to be considered as the type for our own interpersonal relations?

This subject requires greater analysis, because, as I emphasised at the start, there is great confusion and perhaps distortion of the orthodox triadology when it is associated with sociology, that is to say, when we wish to clarify the relationship between the persons in society on the basis of the relationship of the Persons of the Holy Trinity.

I would like to focus attention and interest on three basic points, which will show us the impasse which such correlations reach.

The first is the term 'Person'. We have seen before that the Fathers assigned this term to God, with the aim of refuting the error of the heretics, but also of expressing the experience of Revelation. With certain conditions they also called man a person-hypostasis. However, it could not be regarded as the same thing, without the necessary analysis and adjustment.

In the first place it is known that God is uncreated, while man is created. There is no likeness between created and uncreated. Uncreated refers to what has no beginning and end, while created refers to what has a concrete beginning and has no end because God wishes it to have no end. The uncreated is unchanging, while the created is changing, it has change and decay. Furthermore, God is bodiless, while man has a body. If we consider the fact that in his life since his fall, man has been wearing the garments of skin, that is to say, decay and mortality, and has been possessed by passions, then we understand the difference that exists between God and man. There can be no absolute correlation between the Person of God and the person of man.

St. John of Damaskos says in apt and precisely worded thought and phrase, that it is impossible to find in creation any image which exactly portrays the way of being of the Holy Trinity. The created is compounded, variable, changeable, circumscribed, has shape, and is corruptible. All the opposites apply to the uncreated. Moreover it is here that the difference between created and uncreated is to be found. The entire creation is inclined towards these factors and is still in bondage to decay. So how is it possible for the created to display "that suprasubstantial divine essence which is far removed from all these things?".

We know that the bridge between uncreated and created is one, the point which unites them is one, it is Christ, in the Person of whom the divine has been united immutably, inseparably, indivisibly with human nature, or to put it better, the divine nature assumed human nature in the hypostasis of the Logos. Therefore man, who is in the image of God, which is potentially a likeness, living in the Church and united with Christ, can become a person actually. Indeed man is by birth potentially a person, but he must actualise this hypostatic principle by the power of Christ. In communion with God he becomes a person.

Moreover we cannot conceive of the person if there is no communion. The person does not live alone; he has reference, relationship, communion. If there is a passionate relationship, we cannot speak of communion. Therefore we say that the hypostatic principle in man is activated by the ascetic and mysterial life.

The second point is that of the mutual interpenetration ('perichoresis') of persons. As we said at first, some people use the theology of the mutual interpenetration of persons which applies to the Holy Trinity, in order to characterise the relations between the persons in society and in the Church as well. A great deal is being said today about interpersonal relations and interpenetration of beloved Persons, according to the way of being of the persons of the Holy Trinity.

To be sure, the way of being of the Persons of the Holy Trinity refers to their hypostatic character and cannot demonstrate human relations. For how can unbegotten, begotten and proceeding, which are the ways of being of the Persons of the Holy Trinity, be transferred to the human facts?The term 'symbebikos', what has come together or happened, has many meanings. In human facts this refers to the manner of outward action, expression, and so forth, and not to the hypostatic characteristics as is said with reference to the Persons of the Holy Trinity.

The point is that what applies to the relationship between the Persons of the Holy Trinity cannot be transferred to human affairs as well, that is to say, what happens between the Persons of the Holy Trinity cannot happen in human relations.

In the teaching of the holy Fathers we see that there is a distinction in the manner of union. The union in nature which exists in the Persons of the Holy Trinity is a different thing from the hypostatic union which exists in the Person of the Logos through the assumption of human nature by the divine nature. And again the union in energy which took place by His creating man in the image of God and whenever man participates in the deifying energy of God. This means that man when united with Christ can never become God-man, even by grace, nor of course can he experience the union of essence which is proper to the Persons of the Holy Trinity.

Since man, receiving the grace of God, can never attain hypostatic union, it is never possible for created man to commune in nature with the uncreated God. Consequently he can never experience the way of being of the Persons of the Holy Trinity, and the interpenetration of the Persons of the Holy Trinity cannot be regarded as a pattern for human interpersonal relations.

The Persons of the Holy Trinity have a common nature and personal characteristics. In spite of their particular ways of being, the persons live within one another, and thus the Logos cannot be understood apart from the Father and the Holy Spirit, nor the Spirit apart from the Father and the Logos. But if we see the way of being and of communion of the Persons of the Holy Trinity as the pattern for human interpersonal human relations, then how can we understand the communion between people, given that there is a body as well? How is it possible for a communion of loved persons to exist according to the prototype of the Threefold God, when there are bodies, passions, etc.? How can they live in one another? I cannot understand this.

I think that St. John of Damaskos will help us greatly to see this difference. Since he makes the distinction that real seeing is one thing and taking a logical view is another, he says that in all creatures the distinction of the hypostases is meant in reality. Someone who is called Peter is independent of another who is called Paul. While they are actually separate from each other, their oneness is meant with reference to logic and thought. The common nature of the two is also understood with reference to reason. For we know that each one is a logical and mortal being and is flesh instilled with reason and a noetic soul. They do not contain each other's hypostasis. "Nor are the hypostases in one another". There are many things which separate the hypostases, such as time and manner and power, shape and habit, profession and all the characteristic features, but most of all, the fact that they are not living in each other. "They live not in one another but apart". Thus human hypostases cannot live in one another, but there are many elements which unite them. Therefore the division between the hypostases is real and the unity of natures is intelligible and rational, that is to say it is seen in thought.

The opposite is true of the Persons of the Holy Trinity. "It is quite the contrary in the case of the holy, suprasubstantial, all-transcendent, and incomprehensible Trinity". In the Holy Trinity the community and unity are understood in a real way, by reason of the identity of substance, energy, will, opinion, authority, power and goodness. Therefore the essence, energy, and power of the three hypostases is one. But while the oneness of the Persons of the Holy Trinity is real, the division is a "conception", that is to say it is with reference to their way of being. This means that, in spite of the particular hypostatic characteristics, there is real unity of the Persons of the Holy Trinity in nature and essence. In the Persons of the Holy Trinity there is no spatial distance, as there is in us, nor any difference of will, opinion, energy, power etc..

The words of St. John of Damascus defy every attempt to correlate the interpenetration of the Persons of the Holy Trinity with the interpenetration of the human persons in community, even within the Church. There is a chaotic difference between them. What man can say that it is possible to live completely, psychosomatically, within the hypostasis of another? In any case St. John of Damaskos rules it out. Perhaps a deified person can live it in part, but even this cannot happen in just the same way as in the interpenetration of the divine hypostases.

The third point is related to what has just been said and refers to interpersonal relations. In order to emphasise how the relationships of people should function in community and in marriage, some people take as an example the way in which the Persons of the Holy Trinity are related. They link the relationship of the Persons of the Holy Trinity with the figures love-freedom, and unity-freedom. That is to say, they maintain that in the Holy Trinity there is love and unity, which are expressed by their common nature and essence, and the freedom which is expressed by the hypostatic characteristics of each Person. Therefore, as they say, love can never do away with freedom, nor freedom do away with love, just as freedom must exist in unity and unity in freedom.

It must be acknowledged that at one time in the past when I was studying such views, they appealed to me because I could use them in speaking of the relations between people. And in reality it is quite appealing and interesting to speak about the fact that we cannot suppress the freedom of another in the name of love, because this is a form of dictatorship, just as also love and unity must not be suppressed in the name of each person's freedom, for this constitutes anarchy. It is also quite interesting to explain the relationship between unity and freedom with reference to the social systems, capitalism and Marxism. But I am convinced that we can make such correlations, but independently of what takes place in the Holy Trinity.

We said before that the relationship of the Persons of the Holy Trinity cannot be applied to human data, because the Triune God is uncreated, while man is created.

At all events, the philosophising and sociologising theologians who make such correlations without understanding it fall into many theological errors. I shall try to pinpoint two of these, the most characteristic, in what follows.

One is that love and freedom are not persons, but natural energies. Goodness, freedom, will, and so forth, are essential energies of the Triune God. The energies of God are enhypostatic, because they are expressed through the hypostases, but they are not hypostases-persons.

St. John of Damaskos says that by the three Persons we understand that God is uncompounded and without confusion, by the consubstantiality of the Persons and their existence in one another and by the indivisibility of the identity "of will, operation, virtue, power, and, so to speak, motion" we recognise the undividedness and the fact that God is one. The unity between the Persons in God is real for the co-eternalness, and sameness of essence, energy, and will, for the harmony of opinion and sameness of authority, power and goodness, "and the one impulse of motion". He is not speaking of likeness, but of identity. For "there is one essence, one goodness, one power, one will, one energy, one and the same, not three alike, but one and the same motion of the three hypostases".

It is clear that goodness and will are energies of the essence and express the sameness of the essence. The energy in the Triune God is common. This means that love, opinion, will, and movement do not belong to the persons, but to the essence.

With these facts, how can we think that love is linked with what is common, and freedom is linked with its own hypostatic characteristic? A greater problem is created when we identify freedom with the wan of being, and in this way we relate it with the freedom of each man. We shall see this later on, but here we wish to emphasise that since the Second Person of the Holy Trinity is the Son and the Third is the Holy Spirit, it is not possible for us to think that they can move freely and independently of the Father. A sociological analysis sees it in such a way when it applies to the Triune God.

In the Triune God we distinguish essence and nature and hypostases or persons. This does not mean that the essence or nature can exist without the persons, or that the persons or hypostases can be considered independently of the essence or nature. Moreover, according to the teaching of our Fathers, the essence is seen through the particular hypostatic qualities.

The other error is to be found in the matter of the unity of the Persons of the Holy Trinity. Some people maintain that the unity is due to the Father who is "original godhead", and others that the unity is due to the common essence. These two views end in different conclusions. The first view ends in overemphasis of the person, the second ends in overemphasis of the essence and creates an abstract theology.

I think that apart from the partial truths which are hidden within such isolated views, the truth is that the oneness of the Persons of the Holy Trinity is due both to the Father, Who begets the Son and sends out the Holy Spirit, and to their common essence. The first shows the cause of the existence of the other Persons and describes their hypostatic characteristics, and the second underlines the common energy. I cannot conceive that each Person acts freely, with the common essence which they have, for in that case we would end with God having a moral will rather than a natural one.

This too is an important topic, which shows that it is not possible for us to speak of interpersonal human relations which must move according to the prototype of the Holy Trinity with regard to freedom and love. For in human facts freedom is taken for a will of choice, whereas we cannot speak of a will of choice in the Persons of the Holy Trinity, but rather of a natural will which is common to the Holy Trinity because it is linked with nature.

In general, it is by no means possible for the manner of existence of the Persons of the Holy Trinity and the relationship between them to be made a protype for the interpersonal relations of the people in the community and the family. It is never possible for ecclesiology, anthropology and sociology to have reference to the trinitarian relationship.

St. John of Damaskos, speaking of the way of being of the Son, says: "for no other generation is to be compared to the generation of the Son of God". And speaking of the procession of the Holy Spirit he says: "This other way of being is incomprehensible and unknown, just as is the generation of the Son". The way of being of the Persons of the Holy Trinity, that is to say the way in which the Persons exist, is unknown and incomprehensible to the human mind. We know from Christ's revelation that the Son exists by begetting and the Holy Spirit by procession. But exactly what this is we do not know, because it concerns the innermost relations of the Persons of the Holy Trinity and is entirely unknown.

Man's attempt to understand these things mentally is scholasticism. And the attempt to adapt the way of being of the Persons of the Holy Trinity to human facts and interpersonal relations is a heresy.

To be sure, those who make such a correlation base themselves on Christ's words in His high-priestly prayer to the Father. "Holy Father, keep through Your name those whom You have given Me, that they may be one as We are" (John 17,11). Here Christ asks His Father that His disciples may attain unity together, in the way that they too (the Persons of the Holy Trinity) are united together. But this passage also does not favour correlations just such as are made by those people who exploit not only the dogma of the Holy Trinity but also the very mystery of the Holy Trinity. And this for two reasons.

The first because, as Fr. John Romanides teaches, and as is clear from the study of the whole highpriestly prayer of Christ, here Christ is referring to the unity of the disciples which they will acquire on the day of Pentecost, when they will attain the vision of God. It is about the unity among them when they attain deification.

The passage "that they may behold My glory which You have given Me" should be seen in correlation with the passage "that they may be made perfect in one" (John 17, 23-24). Therefore it is a question of the disciples' oneness in glorification, in the vision of God and deification, which took place on the day of Pentecost. This prayer was fulfilled on the day of Pentecost and is fulfilled when each deified person attains deification and the vision of God.

The other basic reason for which Christ's words have absolutely no application to human data is in the interpretation given by St. Cyril of Alexandria to Christ's high-priestly prayer. I am not setting out to analyse the views of St. Cyril, but only to give his interpretation that the "as" does not mean complete identity but is used "as an image and type", and from the point of view "of imitating the characters". The bond and the love between us cannot apply in an identical way, as it does in the relationships of the Son with the Father, because there they are "identical in essence".

St. Cyril says that the relationship of the Son to the Father "is meant natural and true, also with regard to its way of being". That is to say, it is true and natural because it is a unity of essence and according to its way of being. In contrast, the relationship and unity of men "pretends to take the form of true unity". We see the true relationship of community and unity in the Persons of the Holy Trinity, while, perfect as the relations between human beings may be, they are imitations of the form of true unity.

And saying these things, he asks: "For how can the antitypes be completely equal to the archetypes?" The archetypes are the Triune God, while the antitypes are man and the relationships between men. We cannot find equal analogies between the archetypes and the antitypes. And he concludes: "The formation of truth towards this truth, while not the same in meaning, is seen in equal forms, but is separated not by a chance difference".

The conclusion to this whole analysis is that the deified possess existential knowledge of the Holy Trinity, they know, as far as possible, the relationship between the Persons of the Triune God. This is a matter of experience and Revelation and not of conjectures. But then they also use the appropriate terms in order to refute the views of the heretics. In this perspective they speak of essence or nature, person or hypostasis. In spite of their use of these terms, they often say that the way of being of the Persons of the Holy Trinity is "incomprehensible and unknowable". This is why they often use apophatic terminology. There cannot be any confusion and correlation between the persons of the Holy Trinity and human persons.

In this analysis we have repeatedly emphasised that the dogma about the mystery of the Holy Trinity is a different thing from the mystery of the Holy Trinity. Man can speak and theologise about the dogma, but there can be no conjecture about the mystery. The mystery is experienced, both as far as it is permitted to man and as far as man partakes of the uncreated energies during the vision of God. The dogma is analysed, because it is a formulation about the Revelation. By means of this combination we avoid falling into agnosticism. The deified man possesses knowledge of God, but he does not become God in essence. The relationships according to nature and essence refer to the Persons of the Holy Trinity. Man is united with the Triune God according to energy and grace.

Man is formed in the image of God. This image refers to the fact that he is in the image of Christ, who is "the image of the invisible God" (Col. 1,15). But since Christ is always united with the Father and the Holy Spirit, and since the energy of the Triune God is common to them, therefore man united with Christ becomes a dwelling-place of the Holy Trinity. What is of Christ is also of the Father and the Holy Spirit, except the hypostatic characteristics. In the Church we partake of the energy of the Holy Trinity, "in the person of Jesus Christ" (2 Cor. 4,6).

It is a great mistake and a theological error, perhaps a heresy as well, to make conjectures about the trinitarian relationships, to transcend the human and investigate the uncreated God, as it is also a great error to adjust interpersonal and social relationship to the way of being of the Persons of the Holy Trinity and identify with them. One can make analyses concerning love, freedom and unity, but one cannot correlate the love with essence, and freedom with the hypostatic characteristic. Such projections end in arbitrary conclusions and constitute theological conjecture, with terrible consequences for the whole of theology.

These erroneous views come about because the person and personal relations are analysed on the basis of philosophy. I am of the opinion that these errors will be avoided only if the person is investigated with regard to his asceticism and his vision of God.

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