Page 137 - Prayer Book

Ι Heard You…
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reality! The “person” is revealed through a relationship, a
relationship of unique love. This is how the “person” exists.
By identifying the “hypostasis” with the “person,” the Cap-
padocian Fathers gave the hypostasis a relational character
as well! They gave the “hypostasis” the character of free
ontological Love!
In divine reality, a Hypostasis is a “Person,” and it ex-
ists as a “Person,” which means that for a divine Hypostasis
to exist, a unique, ontological, personal, divine Love is re-
quired!
Consequently, in the divine being, a Hypostasis does
not have its existence based on an objective, impersonal,
natural mechanism, but on Love! More specifically, a Hy-
postasis does not exist first as nature, as a natural individu-
ality, and then become a person through interpersonal
relationships of love. Rather, it comes into existence as a
“person,” as a being of Love, as a Hypostasis of Love, whose
source of existence is another “Person” who desires to exist
as Love! It is a Person who realizes, or “hypostasizes,” its
nature by bringing into existence other personal hy-
postases, other personal “othernesses,” making its exist-
ence a reality of Love!
The Cappadocian Fathers thus declared that God is
three Personal Hypostases with one indivisible and unbro-
ken divine essence or nature. The divine Person who ini-
tially desires to exist as Love—and thus brings into exist-
ence other divine Persons—is the one revealed to us as
God the Father, and the Persons He brings into existence
are the Son and the Holy Spirit! These two divine Personal
Hypostases, the Son and the Spirit, originate from the di-