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In the first three centuries, the Church did not feel the need to give an explicit formulation of her faith in the Holy Spirit. For example, in the Church’s most ancient Creed, the so-called Symbol of the Apostles, after proclaiming: “I believe in God the Father almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord, who was born, died, descended into hell, rose again from the dead and ascended into heaven”, adds: “I believe in the Holy Spirit” and nothing more, without any specification.

But it was heresy that drove the Church to define this faith. When this process began – with Saint Athanasius in the fourth century – it was precisely the experience she had of the sanctifying and divinizing action of the Holy Spirit that led the Church to the certainty of the full divinity of the Holy Spirit. This occurred during the Ecumenical Council of Constantinople in 381, which defined the divinity of the Holy Spirit with the well-known words we still repeat today in the Creed: “I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life, who proceeds from the Father and the Son, who with the Father and the Son is adored and glorified, who has spoken through the prophets”.

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The Council definition was not a point of arrival, but of departure. And indeed, once the historical reasons that had obstructed a more explicit affirmation of the divinity of the Holy Spirit had been overcome, this was confidently proclaimed in the worship of the Church and in her theology. Saint Gregory of Nazianzus, in the aftermath of the Council, went on to state without hesitation: “Is the Holy Spirit then God? Certainly! Is He consubstantial? Yes, if He is true God”

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Pope Francis

General Audience

October 16, 2024


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