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Trinity Day is one of the twelve most important holidays in Orthodoxy after Easter, dedicated to the events of the earthly life of Jesus Christ and the Mother of God. The holiday is dedicated to the glorification of the Holy Trinity; liturgical readings and sermons on this day reveal the Christian teaching about the trinity of God.
Trinity 2018: when is it celebrated?
The Day of the Holy Trinity or Pentecost is celebrated on the 50th day after Easter. In 2018, Orthodox Christians celebrate Trinity on May 27.
In Ukraine, Trinity Day is considered an important church holiday, therefore a public holiday has been declared on this day. Since the holiday falls on a Sunday, Monday, May 28th, following it, will also be a day off. That is, at the end of May, Ukrainians will have: May 26, 27 and 28, 2018.
In the Catholic tradition, Pentecost and Trinity are separate. The Feast of Trinity is celebrated on the 7th day after Pentecost (57th after Easter). However, in 2018, Trinity Day coincides for Catholics and Orthodox Christians.
The meaning of the holiday of Trinity
It is believed that the apostles, who are also called the disciples of Jesus Christ, decided to establish a holiday in honor of the Holy Trinity. In this way, they wanted to consolidate in people’s memory the event that occurred on the fiftieth day after the Ascension of the Lord. It was on this day that the Holy Spirit descended on the holy apostles, which symbolizes the trinity of God, that is, the existence of three Persons of one essentially God - the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit descended on the apostles in the form of tongues of fire and gave them the ability to speak in different languages in order to bring the teachings of Christ to all nations. Fire in this case symbolizes the power to scorch sins and cleanse, sanctify and warm souls.
Pentecost is also considered the birthday of the Christian Church.
Traditions of the Trinity holiday in Ukraine
On the Day of the Holy Trinity, one of the most solemn and beautiful services of the year is performed in Orthodox churches. After the liturgy, Great Vespers is served, at which stichera are sung, glorifying the descent of the Holy Spirit.
For many centuries, the tradition of decorating churches and houses with freshly cut greenery, branches and flowers on Trinity Sunday has been preserved, which symbolize the renewal of the soul. For this reason, the holiday is often called Green Sunday.
On the occasion of the holiday, it is customary to prepare dishes from eggs, milk, fresh herbs, poultry and fish. They bake loaves, pies, pancakes. Close people and relatives are invited to the festive dinner.
According to folk traditions, when leaving the church, people tried to grab the grass from under their feet to mix with hay, boil with water and drink as a healing herb. Some made wreaths from the leaves of the trees that stood in the church and used them as amulets.
Among the people, the Trinity holiday has always been loved by young girls. On this day, it is customary to weave wreaths, lowering them into the river for fortune telling. Then the girls went for a walk in the forest. The loaf baked on the occasion of the holiday was distributed to unmarried girls in the forest. These pieces were dried and stored until the wedding, then kneading crackers into dough for the wedding loaf. They believed that they would bring prosperity and love to their new family.
The Saturday before Pentecost is considered a day of remembrance. People in churches light candles for the repose of deceased relatives and clean up cemeteries.
Doctrine of the Trinity
The central dogma of the Catholic Church is the dogma of the Trinity. According to the teachings of the Church, one God exists in three unfused and indivisible persons - the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. The ideas of Tertullian were of great importance for the understanding of the Trinity by the Western Church, and the teaching of the Trinity received relative completeness from Augustine, who gave a “psychological” interpretation of the Trinity as eternal divine self-knowledge and love. The doctrine of the Trinity has the most important practical significance for the Church. The “consubstantiality” and “hypostasis” of the persons of the Trinity substantiates the unity and equal significance of the three sources of Revelation - the Old Testament, the New Testament and the Holy Tradition, and thereby the authority of the Church as the custodian of Revelation, outside of which it is impossible to find salvation. This is the reason for the Church’s irreconcilable struggle against anti-Trinitarian teachings.
From the book Patrolology Course author Sidorov Alexey Ivanovich From the book Dogmatic Theology author Davydenkov Oleg3.1.2. Origen's Doctrine of the Trinity To understand the further history of the development of Trinitarian theology, it is necessary to have a general understanding of Origen's doctrine of the Trinity, since the overwhelming majority of the Ante-Nicene fathers were Origenists in their Trinitarian views. Doctrine
From the book Introduction to Patristic Theology author Meyendorff Ioann FeofilovichThe doctrine of the Trinity and of Christ Tertullian’s great merit is that for the first time in the history of Christian thought he used expressions that subsequently became firmly established in Orthodox Trinity theology. Thus, he said that the Son has the same essence as the Father; And
From the book Catholicism author Rashkova Raisa TimofeevnaTeaching about St. Trinity In his teaching about St. Does Origen primarily start from the idea of God as a unity or a monad? terms borrowed from the Neoplatonic vocabulary. In addition, he uses the term Trinity and, describing the relationship between the Persons of the Trinity, for the first time
From the book Great Teachers of the Church author Skurat Konstantin EfimovichThe Doctrine of the Trinity The main merit of St. Athanasius consists in his struggle against Arianism. While there is not a single Orthodox bishop left in the Eastern Church, he? one against all? courageously defended the Orthodox Nicene faith, which proclaimed the consubstantiality of the Father and
From the book Holy Fathers and Teachers of the Church author Karsavin Lev PlatonovichThe Doctrine of the Holy Trinity Augustine wrote his book “On the Trinity” at the end of his life. It sums up his entire concept of God. This book subsequently became the basis of the classical Western, “psychological” understanding of the Holy Trinity. This is how the Trinity abides: reason, love, knowledge;
From the book Orthodox Philosophy and Theology author Kuraev Andrey VyacheslavovichDoctrine of the Trinity The central dogma of the Catholic Church is the dogma of the Trinity. According to the teachings of the Church, one God exists in three unfused and indivisible persons - the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Of great importance for the understanding of the Trinity by the Western Church were the ideas
From the book Lectures on patrolology of the 1st-4th centuries by the authorThe Teaching about God, the Holy Trinity The teaching of Blessed Diadochos about God is inextricably linked with his teaching about the Holy Trinity. God is incomprehensibly different from all creation and immeasurably superior to it. He is not limited by any place, “he is not delayed by walls.” He "is everywhere and in everything, and beyond
From the book Jesus, the Interrupted Word [How Christianity Really Born] by Erman Barth D.Doctrine of the Holy Trinity In the fight against Arianism, Saint Ambrose decisively became a preacher of the dogmatic definition of religion of the First Ecumenical Council. Therefore, in his Trinitarian scheme, the central place is occupied by the doctrine of the Second Person, of His Divinity. Emphasizing
From the book Origen's Doctrine of the Holy Trinity author Bolotov Vasily Vasilievich From the book The Dogmatic System of St. Gregory of Nyssa author Nesmelov Viktor IvanovichSECTION IV. TEACHING ABOUT THE TRINITY (TRIADOLOGY) Topic 8. Christ in the Gospel PROGRAMThe meaning of the Gospel story about Christ. The difference between sacred and epic texts. Event structure of the Gospel. The phenomenon of Christ. The historicity of Jesus. The semantic center of the sermon
Trinity 2016
Trinity is one of the most important Christian twelve holidays. It is also called Pentecost, or the day of the Holy Trinity. This holiday is honored by both the Catholic and Orthodox churches, as its roots go back to the time of Jesus Christ. Trinity 2016 is a revered day on which services are held, houses are decorated with greenery and fairs and night festivities are held.
Trinity in 2016, what is the date for the Orthodox?
The event, which later became a church holiday called the Day of the Holy Trinity, occurred during the Old Testament celebration of Pentecost, which was celebrated after fifty days from the beginning of Easter. According to legend, on this day the Holy Spirit descended to the apostles of Christ and revealed to them the secret of the trinity of God. Until this moment, the apostles knew only the hypostasis of God the father and God the son. The Holy Spirit came to the apostles not in physical form, but in the form of an incorporeal fire that does not burn. He gifted them with the ability to speak other languages, as this was necessary to glorify the Lord throughout the world and carry his word. The upper room in which the apostles were located became the first Church of Christ the Savior. Orthodox Christians will celebrate Trinity 2016 on June 19.
Signs for Trinity
Catholic Trinity: what date is it celebrated in 2016
The Catholic Church treats Trinity Day with no less respect than the Orthodox Church. Since the fourteenth century, Western Christians have celebrated Trinity Sunday on the first Sunday after the Feast of Pentecost. In Orthodox culture these holidays are combined. The structure and rituals of the holiday among Catholics are also different and contain a whole cycle. The first day of the cycle is called the Feast of the Descent of the Holy Spirit. Four days after it (or eleven after Pentecost), the Catholic Church celebrates the day of the Body and Blood of Christ. The next feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus is usually celebrated on the nineteenth day after Pentecost, and immediately after it (on the twentieth day) the cycle ends with the Feast of the Immaculate Heart of the Virgin Mary. This year the date of celebration of the Western Christian Trinity falls on May 22.
What do they do on Trinity Sunday?
This church holiday is famous for its very beautiful rituals and traditions that go back to the deep past. Orthodox churches are traditionally decorated with birch branches on the first calendar day of the celebration. However, due to the fact that different regions of Russia have different climatic conditions, birch branches are replaced with rowan, maple or oak. Branches in bloom symbolize God's invaluable gift, and remind parishioners that the soul of the righteous will also bloom with grace-filled fruits. It’s not for nothing that this holiday is also called green Christmas time. The service begins in the morning. It is customary to come to it in smart clothes. In their hands they hold green herbs, flowers, and branches. The clergy are also dressed in green robes on this day.
Immediately after the service, mass events were organized, dances, chants, round dances, which did not subside even after sunset.
Signs and customs for Trinity
They prepare thoroughly for the Day of the Holy Trinity. Housewives carefully clean all the rooms, and then decorate the premises with flowers, twigs and young grass. Our ancestors hung walnut, maple, rowan, and oak branches on the walls. It was believed that plants that decorated houses and temples were endowed with medicinal properties and became amulets. They were preserved and used as remedies for ailments, damage and thunderstorms. In Russia there was a tradition of adding crackers dried from the Trinity loaf to a wedding cake.
Customs for Trinity
As soon as you spoke about the Spirit, which should not be said, it became clear to you that you had been abandoned by the Spirit. Just as one who closes his eyes has darkness within himself, so one who is separated from the Spirit, becoming outside the one who enlightens, is overcome by spiritual blindness.
Saint Basil the Great
Photo by Boris Chubatyuk
Godson. Today I would like to talk about what are the differences between the faith in the Holy Trinity among us, Orthodox Christians, and among Western Christians?
Godfather. The main difference in the belief in the Trinity of Catholics, most Protestant communities, on the one hand, and Orthodoxy, on the other, is that these Western Christians accept the dogma of the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Father and from the Son (the so-called “filioque”). This is what it says in the Catholic Creed: I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Life-Giving Lord, who is from the Father and Son outgoing.
Godson. This seems strange to me and seems clearly contrary to what we know about the Trinity from the works of the Holy Fathers.
Godfather. Absolutely right. Firstly, it must be said that “filioque” means the introduction of two Principles of being in the Trinity. So in connection with this, St. Mark of Ephesus wrote: “The Spirit,” says the Theologian of Nyssa (St. Gregory of Nyssa. – Auto.), - comes from the Fatherly Hypostasis." If He also comes from the Hypostasis of the Son, then what else does this mean, if not that He comes from two Hypostases? And the fact that He comes from two Hypostases, what else but that "that He has two principles of His Being? Thus, as long as the Latins maintain that the Holy Spirit also comes from the Son, they will not escape duality." (On the procession of the Holy Spirit precisely from hypostases The Father is clearly stated by the following statement of St. Gregory the Theologian: “For us there is one God, for there is one Divinity and those Persons who come from Him belong to One.” This “One,” of course, is nothing other than the First Person of the Most Holy Trinity – God the Father.)
And this introduction of two principles certainly contradicts the teachings of the Church, since there are many sayings of the holy fathers who lived in the times before the division of the Church into Orthodox and Catholic, which clearly indicate to us the existence of a single principle in the Trinity (monarchy). (St. Mark of Ephesus in his treatises “Confession of the Right Faith” and “Sum of Sayings about the Holy Spirit” (published in the book by A. Pogodin) specially collected a large number of patristic sayings that clearly testify to this truth. Here are just a few: “The same source ( that is, the only Guilt) of the prenatural Divinity is the Father, and this distinguishes it from the Son and the Spirit" (St. Dionysius the Areopagite); "The one unborn and the only source of the Divinity is the Father" (St. Athanasius the Great); "The only Guilty One is the Father" (St. John of Damascus )). However, this discrepancy with the patristic tradition is far from the only malignant consequence of all such consequences arising from the “filioque”.
Godson. I would like to know about them in detail.
Godfather. Firstly, from the fact that in the Trinity there are two beginning, it follows that there are several Gods in the Trinity, as clearly follows from the patristic teaching. Saint Basil the Great wrote this: “There are not two Gods; because there are not two Fathers. He who introduces two principles preaches two Gods” (Conversation 24). Saint Gregory the Theologian wrote about the Holy Trinity: “The Divinity is the Three infinite, infinite co-naturalness, where each, intelligibly conceived in Himself, is God, as the Father and the Son, the Son and the Holy Spirit, with the preservation of personal properties in each, and the Three, intelligibly represented together, also God; the first because of consubstantiality, the last because of unity of command" (Homily 40). (Since each of the three Persons is of divine nature, then from the above statement of St. Gregory and from the presence of dual leadership (which follows from the “filioque”), the presence of polytheism in the Trinity follows with logical necessity.)
Thus, based on the teachings of these two great saints, we can state that the filioque, destroying unity of command (monarchy), destroys the central dogma of Christianity - monotheism. From the presence of two Gods in the Trinity, it necessarily follows that there is a difference between Them in their properties, and from this, in turn, follows, firstly, complexity in the Holy Trinity and, secondly, the fact that one of the Divine Persons is not God. (Because if there is a property in which two Gods differ, then one of them lacks a certain quality that the other has, which means that the first is imperfect and, therefore, is not God. Unlimited perfection is an integral property of the Divine. (" The Divinity is perfect and without deficiency, both in terms of goodness and wisdom and power, beginningless, infinite, eternal, indescribable and - just to say - perfect in all respects.") From this again follows the complexity in the Most Holy Trinity, but in in an even more crude sense (since in this case in the Trinity there is something divine and something different in nature - that is, non-divine, created). And thus, in the end it turns out that the Trinity is the One God, being complex, but not simple it cannot be, since simplicity is an inherent property of God. This is how the Monk John of Damascus wrote about this: “The Divinity is simple and uncomplicated. That which consists of many and different things is complex. So, if uncreatedness, and beginninglessness, and incorporeality, and goodness, and creative power, and the like, we call essential differences in God, then consisting of so many will not be simple, but complex, that (to talk about the Divine) is a matter of extreme wickedness."
Godson. This means that Catholics do not believe in the Trinity as the One God?
Godfather. This question must be answered in each specific case, and the answer is not simple, since, on the one hand, they recognize One God in the Trinity, on the other hand, their doctrine of the Trinity (including the “filioque”) actually turns out to be ditheism, with all the ensuing consequences. For a person to really believe in the one true God, it is necessary that his concepts about this one God be correct, otherwise he believes in something else (in the image of his fantasy), and not in the real One God. If you wish, you can call anything God (including onions, as the ancient Egyptians did). And such an erroneous belief in God, in which “something” is blasphemously called God, turns out to be faith in a “filioque.”
In addition to the indicated reason, one more reason can be pointed out, due to which the dogma of the “filioque” leads to the destruction of the dogma that the Trinity is one God. If the Holy Spirit comes from the Father and from the Son, then we must necessarily assume the presence in the Holy Spirit of its two “parts”, having their origin respectively from the Father and from the Son (for example, St. Photius wrote about this: “To all that has been said, if The Son is begotten of the Father, and the Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son; then, as ascending from two principles, He would inevitably be composite."
Godson. And that means the Holy Spirit will be difficult?
Godfather. There may be two options for complexity here. To understand this, we must first answer the following question: is each of the “parts” God or not?
Godson. Let's say not.
Godfather. Then among these two parts there is at least one, which by its nature is not God, but something other. And this automatically leads to the complexity of the nature of the Holy Spirit and, because of this, to the denial of His divinity (since the complexity of nature in God is excluded - see above), that is, to the heresy of Macedonius, who denied the divinity of the Holy Spirit, and from this again it follows that that the entire Trinity cannot be the One God, since there is something of a non-divine nature in it.
Godson. And if each of the “parts” is God, then what?
Godfather. Then the Holy Spirit will not be a Person in the exact sense of the word.
Godson. Why?
Godfather. Since, according to the holy fathers, a face designates something that is not subject to any further division: " Face but denotes the indivisible, that is, the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit, Peter, Paul." And since in the event that a “filioque” takes place, the Holy Spirit turns out to be divisible in some respect, then we have a contradiction with the patristic teaching about the Holy Spirit both about the Person and about the Trinity as a whole, since then in It there are no longer three completely defined indivisible Persons (Father, Son and Holy Spirit), but at least four (Father, Son and two parts).
But that's not all the troubles. For the Trinity to be One God, necessary, so that there would be no more than three and no less than three Persons, as St. Gregory the Theologian teaches us: “... The Divinity emerged from singularity because of wealth, transgressed duality, because It is higher than matter and form from which bodies are composed, and was determined by triplicity (the first, which exceeds the composition of duality), because of perfection, so as not to be meager and not to spill into infinity. The first would show lack of sociability, the last - disorder; one would be completely in the spirit of Judaism, the other - paganism and polytheism." This means that with such an interpretation of the “filioque” there is no One God in the Trinity.
Godson. So, there are two arguments why Catholics and other Western Christians who recognize the “filioque” do not believe in the Trinity as the One God?
Godfather. Obviously this is true, but there is also a third argument. Saint Dionysius the Areopagite and Saint Athanasius the Great claim that everything Divine in the Trinity comes from the Person of God the Father (see the above quotes). From this it follows that everything that happens, but does not possess this property, is not God.
Godson. So, there is another argument, according to which the “filioque” is simply nothing more than Doukhoborism, the Macedonian heresy?
Godfather. Exactly. “And we, together with the divine Dionysius, say that the Father is the only Source of the prenatural Divinity; and they (who signed the Florentine Union. - Auto.) together with the Latins they say that the Son is the source of the Holy Spirit, it is obvious that this excludes the Spirit from the Divinity,” as St. Mark of Ephesus wrote in connection with this. And, as we have already found out, it follows from this that the Trinity also turns out to be not God, but something else.
Finally, there is one more argument, and perhaps it is the simplest of those listed. If the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and from the Son, then it is obvious that the procession from the Father turns out to be in some respects inferior, insufficient. "Why does the Spirit also proceed from the Son? After all, if the procession from the Father is perfect (and it is perfect, for God perfect from God perfect), what is this “proceeding from the Son” and what is it for? After all, it would be unnecessary and useless,” St. Photius wrote in this regard.
Godson. Obviously so.
Godfather. This means that if the Holy Spirit comes from the Father and from the Son, then the Father is not God in the exact sense of the word (since he has some imperfection - in terms of bringing out the Holy Spirit), and due to this imperfection there is something other, in its nature different from the Divinity, and, therefore, the Trinity is not the true God (for the same reasons as in the first argument).
No matter what Western Christians tell us, true faith in God always presupposes faith in His very specific properties: “To believe in God means to have living confidence in His being, properties and actions, and to accept with all your heart His revealed word about the salvation of the human race.” . The simplicity of His nature and perfection are His inalienable characteristics. Perhaps faith in the Trinity, which includes faith in the “filioque” (the faith of Catholics and many Protestants), cannot be called complete atheism, but faith in God, the One in the Trinity, cannot in any way be called, since the acceptance of the “filioque” and genuine faith in the One God in the Trinity are logically incompatible. To conclude our conversation, I would like to quote the wonderful words of St. Hippolytus, Pope of Rome: "...Otherwise we cannot recognize the one God, unless we truly believe in the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit" ("Orthodox-Dogmatic Theology". Archbishop Macarius. M., 1868. T. 1. § 28). Distortions of the teaching about the Holy Spirit, as St. Basil teaches us, inevitably lead to the loss of grace, and this constitutes a sufficient condition for the appearance of countless and varied “deviations from the norm” in the spiritual life of the majority of Western Christians. (The proposed material is presented in more detail in the article: N. Kolchurinsky “Conversations about the Holy Trinity.” www.um-islam.nm.ru.)
Literature
1. Saint Mark of Ephesus. Syllogical chapters against the Latins ( Pogodin A. Saint Mark of Ephesus and the Union of Florence. M., 1994).
2. Quote. based on the treatise of St. Mark of Ephesus "Syllogical chapters against the Latins."
3. Venerable John of Damascus. An accurate exposition of the Orthodox faith. Book 1. Ch. 5.
4. Ibid. Book 1. Ch. 9.
5. Saint Photius. District message // Alpha and Omega. 1999. No. 3.
6. Venerable John of Damascus. An accurate exposition of the Orthodox faith. Book 2. Ch. 48.
7. Saint Gregory the Theologian. Word 22.
8. District message. (Quoted from the book by A. Pogodin).
9. Long Christian Catechism (“On the First Member”).
© Nikolay KOLCHURINSKY
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