Today we look at the “Trinity”, what it is and what it isn’t. This article will only briefly touch on this subject because if we were to discuss it thoroughly, you’ll be reading for days.

 What do Orthodox Christians believe about the Trinity? Someone once said that if us mere humans were to understand God fully, then we would be God himself. It’s a fair point, so with the limitations of our humanity, we will use human language to try and describe God – it’s a hard, challenging task.

1. The Orthodox Christians believe that God is ONE BEING and three persons within that one being. All three persons in this one being, have the same nature because they are of the same divine essence. This can be compared to the sun, just like St. Athanasius says: “The Trinity is like the sun: The Sun itself looks like a ball of fire which represents the Father: who is the first person. It then emanates Light: which means the Son: who is the second person. It also radiates the Heat: Which is like the Holy Spirit: who is the third person. The sun is still one being, so Orthodox Christians believe in ONE GOD and not 3 Gods in ONE.”
2. Another factor is the Trinity was never “born” or “created” It IS. This means that it has been around since forever and will be there long after we’re dead
3. There are many verses in the Bible to allude to a Trinity God perfectly laid within the Bible with several verses which indicate to the nature of God of being a Trinity – which is three persons of ONE Being so feel free to take a look at these verses when you can. However, the word “trinity” isn’t mentioned in the Bible. Not even once. This is because the word Trinity is a human word  that allows us to be able to describe the beauty and essence of something that we can’t comprehend.
4.  A famous verse from St. John 1.1: “In the beginning was the Word – and the Word was with God – and the Word was God.” This verse is so important because it describes who Jesus is, and what relationship this Jesus has with God. This verse, amongst others, fundamentally shapes our understanding of God. The “Word” here is referring to Jesus. And Jesus IS the second person of the Three-Person Trinity (the Holy Spirit is the third Person but we won’t discuss that here), and this means that the second person of the Trinity came down to earth and became man The first part of the verse: “In the Beginning Was the Word.” The author is referring to the “beginning”, but he’s not referring to the beginning of the earth – he’s speaking about the “beginning” since forever. IF the Second person of the Trinity was “created” then He wasn’t there since the beginning. He had to be there from the very start, which can only mean that He was God. The second part says “and the Word was with God” – so this person was “with God”. The Bible was pretty clear that there was nothing around with God, as there was only God. But this means that there was a person who was “with God” from the beginning – no other Gods/persons/things were created, and this Word was “with God”? The last part ties it all up by saying that “the Word was God”. So to summarise this verse, we as Orthodox Christians believe that this verse correctly describes the Trinity. The Word (the second person of the Trinity) was there since the beginning, so that means He wasn’t created. He was “with God” so that means that there was at least another person with Him. And He was God. So being God, this shows that the verse reflects the dynamic essence of the Trinity. Three persons in One being. One God, not three Gods.

This is a general idea of what Orthodox Christian’s belief of what God is. Not an exhaustive or in-depth article but just a very brief summary of what Orthodox Christians believe.

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