Perichoresis in the Trinity

[Mina Mounir]

dear friends,
what does the term " Perichoresis" imply ?
I found it in documents talking about trinity , but I didn't understand what does it mean exactly , and where can be found in patristic texts

thanks

[Owen Jones]

dear friends,
what does the term " Perichoresis" imply ?
I found it in documents talking about trinity , but I didn't understand what does it mean exactly , and where can be found in patristic texts

thanks

Thanks for raising a key theological question, Mina. While others can do better than I, perichoresis refers to the mutual indwelling of each of the "persons" of the Trinity, or mutual glorification (from John's Gospel) without in any way diminishing the distinctiveness of each person. It is, of course, the most sublime of all Christian doctrines, from which everything else flows.

[Andreas Moran]

I was taught that it means the dynamic of love among the Persons of the Holy Trinity - a spin, I suppose, on what Owen posted. God is love and can be because He exists in the Trinity. If God were one hypostasis (as Islam says) He could not be love for that love would then be self-regarding. Trinitarian love extends into creation where we are commissioned to keep it circulating and to render it back to the Trinity.

[Owen Jones]

God is more than love. So perichoresis means more than just sharing the love.

[Andreas Moran]

Owen Jones
God is more than love. So perichoresis means more than just sharing the love.

This is interesting - what do you mean, Owen? What is God more than love?

[Owen Jones]

God is Beauty. God is Truth. God is Perfection (i.e. Beauty and Truth). God is perfect Justice. God is Wisdom and Knowledge of all things. God is Mind (nous) in its essence. So there are certain problems that creep in when, as many well-meaning Christians tend to do these days, we reduce God to just love. And the further problem is that most people these days have primarily a psychological definition of love. So it ends up being sentimentalized and sanitized.

[Michael Stickles]

I believe this comes from the verb "perichoreo", which means "to come round to, come to in succession". It's formed from "peri" meaning "around", and "choreo" which means "to give way to, make room for another". Kind of a neat word picture...

In Christ,
Michael

[Mina Mounir]

thanks for all the replies

God is Beauty. God is Truth. God is Perfection (i.e. Beauty and Truth). God is perfect Justice. God is Wisdom and Knowledge of all things. God is Mind (nous) in its essence. So there are certain problems that creep in when, as many well-meaning Christians tend to do these days, we reduce God to just love. And the further problem is that most people these days have primarily a psychological definition of love. So it ends up being sentimentalized and sanitized.
does this have a relationship with what's called " Monarchia " of the father ?
if I can ask , what does this monarchia mean ? because I read in the same book that the prechoresis is understood in the light of Cappadocian order taxis of trinity ... can anyone explain plz?
thanks again.

[M.C. Steenberg]

Dear friends,

I was deeply moved by Owen's description of perichoresis and the Holy Trinity, as 'the most sublime of all Christian doctrines, from which everything else flows'. There is something very perceptive in this, which places the mystery of the Trinity at the heart of all reality experienced in the Church.

Perichoresis is a hard word to translate. It certainly means, as it is sometimes translated, 'mutual indwelling', 'mutual interpenetration', etc. Yet it goes beyond these little terms. Its heart, as a doctrine, is in the experience of God as Father, Son and Spirit, yet in the experience of each of these, encountering and experiencing the others. It is above all else an articulation of experience. In the Son, we encounter the Father. In the Spirit, we know the Son. And this experienced reality of human engagement with God reflects and reveals the nature of God as Trinity - not as three 'separate', 'individual', 'divided' entities, but as three persons, wholly unique yet wholly one.

INXC, Dcn Matthew

[Father David Moser]

Dear friends,

I was deeply moved by Owen's description of perichoresis and the Holy Trinity, as 'the most sublime of all Christian doctrines, from which everything else flows'. There is something very perceptive in this, which places the mystery of the Trinity at the heart of all reality experienced in the Church.
Dcn Matthew

An essay that I read might prove interesting in this light. It is Met Anthony (Khrapovitsky)'s essay, "The moral idea of the dogma of the Trinity" He applies the unity of the Trinity to the unity of the Church - both to Christ and between the members of the Church.

Fr David Moser

[Mina Mounir]

An essay that I read might prove interesting in this light. It is Met Anthony (Khrapovitsky)'s essay, "The moral idea of the dogma of the Trinity" He applies the unity of the Trinity to the unity of the Church - both to Christ and between the members of the Church.

Fr David Moser
is it available online ?

[Father David Moser]

is it available online ?

Not to my knowledge. It is published by Synaxis Press

Fr David Moser

[M.C. Steenberg]

This thread has brought to mind that wonderful remark of Vladimir Lossky: 'Between the Trinity and hell there lies no other choice'. The Trinity is the foundation of all.

[David Robles]

Dear friends,

I was deeply moved by Owen's description of perichoresis and the Holy Trinity, as 'the most sublime of all Christian doctrines, from which everything else flows'. There is something very perceptive in this, which places the mystery of the Trinity at the heart of all reality experienced in the Church.

Its heart, as a doctrine, is in the experience of God as Father, Son and Spirit, yet in the experience of each of these, encountering and experiencing the others. It is above all else an articulation of experience.
INXC, Dcn Matthew
I agree. Each Person of the Holy Trinity lives in, empties himself in the Others. We can 'know' this only by revelation. This Mystery is beyond human language and understanding to describe.
And even more amazingly, we are invited to participate in this life of the Holy Trinity through our union with Our Lord Jesus Christ.
I recall a passage I read in the book "In the Light of Christ"by Archbishop Basil Krivocheine p.282, it reads " In his Hymns (Hymn 11), Symeon (the New Theologian) speaks of his vision of the Trinity, while recognizing that it is beyond human possibilities. Sometimes he sees the three Persons, but it is Christ who opens his mind by this vision in darkness; 'Even during the night, in the heart of darkness, I see Christ - O dread - opening the heavens for me. Christ Himself who condescends and reveals Himself to me with the Father and Spirit, light thrice holy, one in three, three in one (light). Certainly they are the light; the Three are the one light which, better than the sun, enlightens my soul and illumines my mind, that until then had been in darkness. This wonder perplexes me even more when Christ somehow opens the eye of my mind, which was clouded before. For He appears to the One who contemplates Him, and it is in the light of the Spirit that those who contemplate Him see Him, and those who see in this light contemplate the Son. But the one who has been deemed worthy of seeing the Son sees the Father; assuredly, he contemplates the Father and beholds Him with the Son. This, I repeat, is what is happening to me!"

As we can see St Symeon is having a really tough time describing his experience. His experience is beyond human discourse, but it can be 'lived', and the saints live this reality.

I think the best description of 'Perichoresis' is given by St Gregory the Theologian in The Oration on Baptism (Oration 40, section 41);

"This I give you to share, and to defend all your life, the One Godhead and Power, found in the Three in Unity, and comprising the Three separately, not unequal, in substances or natures, neither increased nor diminished by superiorities or inferiorities; in every respect equal, in every respect the same; just as the beauty and the greatness of the heavens is one; the infinite conjunction of Three Infinite Ones, Each God when considered in Himself; as the Father so the Son, as the Son so the Holy Ghost; the Three One God when contemplated together; Each God because Consubstantial; One God because of the Monarchia.

No sooner do I conceive of the One than I am illumined by the Splendour of the Three; no sooner do I distinguish Them than I am carried back to the One. When I think of any One of the Three I think of Him as the Whole, and my eyes are filled, and the greater part of what I am thinking of escapes me. I cannot grasp the greatness of That One so as to attribute a greater greatness to the Rest. When I contemplate the Three together, I see but one torch, and cannot divide or measure out the Undivided Light".

Upon hearing this, I can only bow my head in silence and adoration. May we be counted worthy to behold the Light of the Holy Trinity!