Home - People of God - Incarnation - Kingdom of God - Salvation - Sanctification - Trinity - Creation - Prayer - Consecration - Tradition - Saints - Heaven and Hell - Visitors Centre - Site Map

Holy Spirit

Please make sure that you have read the main "Sanctification" page first.

Setting the Scene

In its worship, the Orthodox Church refers to the Holy Spirit as the "life-creating" or "life-giving" Spirit.  This has two linked aspects, in Creation and Salvation. 

In Genesis 1:2 we read that a "mighty wind" or the "Spirit" (same word in Hebrew for breath, wind and Spirit - ruach) moved over the as yet formless Creation and brought to be that which was not. 

Likewise at the conception of Jesus, the Holy Spirit overshadowed the Virgin Mary and so the Word was made flesh, (Luke 1:35) and later the Church of the New Covenant was birthed by the Holy Spirit at Pentecost (Acts 2:1-4) and so human persons acquired by grace the potential of the Godhead itself (theosis). 

In the Old Covenant (Testament) only the prophets and other anointed persons became Spirit-bearers for as yet the People of God were under the tutelage of the Law.  After the Incarnation, all the baptised were infused with grace to become children of God (John 1:12-13) and bearing the Spirit within them by adoption the privilege of having access to God the Father most directly, personally and intimately, ("Abba! Father! ... " - Galatians 4:6-7). 

In this manner the People of God have the opportunity through repentance and the Holy Mysteries to acquire the Spirit in greater measure and in this dignity and power even the children of God see their transformation as heralding a wider renewal of creation itself in the Last Day, (Romans 8:18-25).

Practical

In 1968, His Beatitude, Patriarch Ignatius of Antioch, when he was Metropolitan of Latakia, gave an address at the Assembly of the World Council of Churches. In it he spoke of the Holy Spirit in a striking and memorable way:

"Without the Holy Spirit God is far away.
Christ stays in the past,
The Gospel is simply an organisation,
Authority is a matter of propaganda,
The Liturgy is no more than an evocation,
Christian loving a slave mentality.

But in the Holy Spirit
The cosmos is resurrected and grows with the
birth pangs of the kingdom.
The Risen Christ is there,
The Gospel is the power of life,
The Church shows forth the life of the Trinity,
Authority is a liberating science,
Mission is a Pentecost,
The Liturgy is both renewal and anticipation,
Human action is deified."

Consider the second stanza (in red).  What fruits of the Holy Spirit in our personal and communal lives might be expected to flow from this perspective?  Give some practical examples and explanations.  What hinders the realisation?

return to Sanctification page

Home - People of God - Incarnation - Kingdom of God - Salvation - Sanctification - Trinity - Creation - Prayer - Consecration - Tradition - Saints - Heaven and Hell - Visitors Centre - Site Map

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.