My beloved spiritual children in Christ Our Only God and Our Only True Savior,
CHRIST IS IN MIDST! HE WAS, IS, AND EVER SHALL BE.

THE UNITY OF GOD

"Therefore, we believe in one God: one principle, without beginning, uncreated, unbegotten, indestructible, and immortal, eternal, unlimited, uncircumscribed, unbounded, infinite in power, simple, uncompounded, incorporeal, unchanging, dispassionate, constant, unchangeable, invisible, source of goodness and justice, light intellectual and inaccessible; power which is not subject to any measure, but which is measured only by His own will, for He can do all things whatsoever He pleases...; one Essence, one Godhead, one power, one will, one operation, one principality, one authority, one dominion, one Kingdom, known in Three perfect Hypostases, and known and worshipped with one worship" (Saint John Damascene, Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith, 1:8).

The Truth of the oneness of God is so evident at the present time to human awareness that it needs no proof from the word of God or simply from reason. It was a little different in the early Christian Church when this truth had to be set forth against the idea of dualism--the acknowledgment of two gods. good and evil--and against the polytheism of the pagans which was then popular.

"I believe in one God." These are the first words of the Symbol of Faith (the Creed). God possesses all the fullness of most perfect being. The idea of fullness, perfection, infinity, all-embracingness in God does not allow us to think of Him other than as One, that is, as singular and having one Essence in Himself. This demand of our awareness is expressed by one of the ancient Church writers in the words: "If God is not one, there is no God" (Tertullian). In other words, a Divinity limited by another being loses his Divine dignity.

The whole of the New Testament Sacred Scripture is filled with the teaching of the One God. "Our Father which art in heaven," we pray in the words of the Lord's Prayer (Matthew 6:9). "There is none other God but One," as the holy Apostle Paul expressed this fundamental truth of faith (1 Corinthians 8:4).

The Sacred Scripture of the Old Testament is entirely penetrated with monotheism. The history of the Old Testament is the history of that battle for faith in the One True God against pagan polytheism. The desire of some historians of religion to find traces of a supposed "original polytheism" in Hebrew people in certain Biblical expressions--as, for example, the plural number in the name of God, "Elohim"--or to find a faith in a "national God" in such phrases as "the God of gods," the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob"--does not correspond to the authentic meaning of these expressions.

God is one in Essence and Triple in Persons. The dogma of the Trinity is the second fundamental dogma of Christianity. A whole series of the Church's great dogmas are founded immediately upon it, beginning first of all with the dogma of our Redemption. Because of its special importance, the doctrine of the All-Holy Trinity constitutes the content of all the Symbols of Faith which have been and are now used in the Orthodox Church, as well as all the private confessions of faith written on various occasions by the shepherds of the Church.

Because the dogma of the All-Holy Trinity is the most important of all Christian dogmas, it is at the same time the most difficult for the limited human mind to grasp. This is why no battle in the history of the ancient Church was as intense as that over this dogma and the truths which are immediately bound u with it.

The dogma of the Holy Trinity includes in itself two fundamental truths:

God is one in Essence but triple in Person. In other words, God is a Tri-unity, is Tri-hypostatical, is a Trinity One in Essence.
The Hypostases have personal or hypostatic attributes: God is unbegotten; the Son is begotten from the Father; the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father.

We worship the All-Holy Trinity with a single and inseparable worship. In the Church Holy Fathers and the Divine services, the Trinity is often called a Unity in Trinity, a Tri-hypostatical Unity. In most cases, prayers addressed to one person of the Holy Trinity end with a glorification or doxology to all Three Persons (for example, in a Prayer to the Lord Jesus Christ: "For most glorious art Thou, together with Thine unoriginate Father, and the All-Holy Spirit, unto the ages. Amen.")

The Trinity of Persons in God was revealed in the New Testament in the coming of the Son of God and in the sending down of the Holy Spirit. The sending to earth by the Father of God the Logos/Word and the Holy Spirit constitutes the content of all the New Testament writings. Of course, this manifestation to the world of the Triune God is given here not in a dogmatic formula, but in an account of the manifestations and deeds of the Persons of the Holy Trinity.

The manifestation of God in Trinity was accomplished at the Baptism of the Lord Jesus Christ, which is why this Baptism itself is called the "Theophany" or "manifestation of God." The Son of God, having become man, accepted baptism by water; the Father testified of Him; and the Holy Spirit confirmed the truth spoken by the voice of God by His manifestation in the form of a dove, as is expressed in the troparion (hymn) of this Feast:

"When Thou, O Lord, wast baptized in the Jordan, the worship of the Trinity was made manifest. For the voice of the Father bore witness unto Thee, calling Thee the beloved Son; and the Spirit in the form of a dove confirmed His word as sure and steadfast. O Christ our God Who hast appeared and enlightened the world, glory to Thee."

(Source: Orthodox Dogmatic Theology)

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"Glory Be To GOD For All Things!"--Saint John Chrysostomos

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With sincere agape in His Holy Diakonia (Ministry),
The sinner and unworthy servant of God

+Father George