Page 83 - THE ARMENIAN CHURCH_Neat

84 The Armenian Church

came into being out of nothing; or who say that
the Son of God or the Holy Spirit are of a
different substance and that they are changeable
or alterable." Then the celebrant recites the
doxology first said by St. Gregory the Illu-
minator: "But we glorify Him who was before
the ages, worshipping the Holy Trinity and the
one Godhead, the Father and the Son and the
Holy Spirit, now and always and unto the ages
3
of ages. Amen."
Catholicos St. Nerses the Gracious (Nersēs
Šnorhali), who is one of the best exponents
of the theological mind and the doctrinal
position of the Armenian Church, explains
the teachings of the Armenian Church in
this way: "We confess the all Holy Trinity, the
Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, divided into
three persons and united in one nature and
Godhead. The Father is unbegotten, without
beginning, [existing] before eternity. The Son is
begotten from the nature of the Father before
time, impassible and incorporeal. The Holy
Spirit proceeds from the Father, not by gene-
ration like the Son, but emanating like a spring
in a manner scrutable to God alone and inscru-
table to created beings. There was not a time
when the Son and the Spirit were not with the
Father. As the Father was always Father and did
not receive afterwards the name of Fatherhood,
likewise the Son was always Son, co-eternal with
His Father, and the Holy Spirit was always the
Spirit of God, inseparable from the Father and