Page 72 - Orthodoxy Zizioulas

O r t h o d o x y
emphasis is not primarily on power in the sense of sheer ca-
pacity to act, but on the ability to hold all things together, to
embrace and sustain. It points, therefore, not simply to power,
but to a relational capacity—to communion and love.
Another significant difference appears in the wording of
the creeds themselves. The early Western creeds consistently
state: credo in Deum Patrem omnipotentem. The Eastern
creeds, however, just as consistently add the word “one”:
πιστεύω εἰς ἕνα Θεὸν Πατέρα παντοκράτορα—“I believe in
one God, the Father almighty.”
This addition is not accidental. By placing “one” before
“God the Father,” the Eastern tradition highlights the question
of divine unity. If, as in the earlier Roman creed, God is iden-
tified with the Father, and if now this God is confessed as
“one,” it follows that the Father is the principle of divine unity.
The phrase “one God the Father” thus attaches unity itself to
the person of the Father.
In this way, the Father is not simply one person among oth-
ers, nor merely an attribute of the divine essence. He is the
source and ground of divine being—the one from whom the
Son and the Spirit receive their existence as persons. Unity,
therefore, is not an abstract property of divine substance, but
a living reality grounded in the person of the Father.
If the Father is the source of divine being and the ground
of unity, then we must now ask how this unity is expressed in
relation to the Son and the Spirit. For the mystery of God is
not exhausted in the Father alone, but unfolds as commu-
nion—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—revealing the full mean-
ing of person and relationship.
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