So how do we as Eastern Christians understand our faith? Although I think it begins with believing Who Jesus Is, I think it also leads us to believing Who God Is. As I look at the history of our faith, I realize that the first great mystery the Church had to deal with was Who Jesus Is. She was not necessarily stimulated to think about Who Jesus Is until certain divergent ideas about Jesus appeared – divergent ideas that She then dealt with and declared heresies. The challenges to the Church were this: When Jesus was on earth, was He just God or just a Man. Some said, and it is important to note that all the heresies were formulated by clergy, He was God and only “like” a human being. Others said that He was Human and only connected to God. The Church, being confronted by these various different ideas of Who Jesus Is, began to wrestle with this idea and, guided by the Holy Spirit, came to the conclusion that Jesus was truly and fully God and truly and fully Man. They also decided that He had only one Personality which joined two distinct natures. They concluded, also, that this was an absolute MYSTERY and that the only way that we can understand it is by faith. Our faith in this truth is, the Church exclaimed, based on a true understanding of what Jesus taught when He was here on earth; how He lived when He was here on earth; and, most importantly, that His resurrection from the dead confirmed that what He taught and how He lived was a true revelation from God about how humans should live in order to accomplish the goal of earthly live, namely to come into ever greater union with God (Theosis).

After the Church decided Who Jesus Is, however, She realized that She had to rethink Who God Is. Although She was convinced that the God Who revealed Himself through Jesus was the same I AM God of Judaism, She realized that He also was different. Thus She grappled with the idea of Who God Is and decided that He is ONE God Who is also Three Distinct Persons (Hypostases). Our belief that God is Triune in Essence, namely a Trinity of Persons, was the direct result of the Church’s understanding that Jesus was ONE PERSON with two distinct natures.

This, I believe, is even a much, more challenging belief. How can ONE BEING be composed of three distinct persons. It’s a mystery! A mystery that only FAITH can embrace!