by Fr. Jonathan H. Cholcher
The term spirituality is not a traditional Orthodox term, although it is a popular term in religious and Christian thought today. Orthodox Christian terminology tends to be concrete and specific, whereas the term spirituality is abstract, meaning something like “generic qualities of the spirit” which can be perceived or applied in any context. For instance, we hear the common phrase: “I’m spiritual, not religious,” together with various qualifiers like Eastern vs. Western Spirituality, or Indian Spirituality, Native American Spirituality, etc. Therefore, the first task when addressing the topic of spirituality, especially in an Orthodox manner, is to ground this concept in the reality of divine truth, namely, the truth of God Himself who “is Spirit” (Jn. 4:24). Then, we can begin to develop the “mind(set) of the Spirit” (Rom. 8:6) to understand exactly what spirituality is and how it shapes our lives.
Several different kinds of creaturely spirits exist in this universe. In both the Hebrew and Greek languages of Scripture, the word commonly rendered as “spirit” is simply the word for wind, ru’ach or pnevma respectively. Compare Genesis 1:2 and 8:1. The first: “The Spirit (ru’ach/pnevma) of God was hovering over the face of the water.” The second: “And God made a wind (ru’ach/pnevma) to pass over the earth, and the waters subsided.” Compare also Exodus 14:21 and 15:8. The first: “[T]he Lord carried back the sea by a strong south wind all that night…Thus the waters were divided.” The second: “By the Spirit of Your anger the waters were gathered together.”
The wind is a forcible, or purposeful, movement of the air clearly intended by God as a natural sign, or symbol, of His more meaningful direction of the world. Our Lord indicates the same when He says, “Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again’ (i.e., of water and the Spirit). The wind (Gk., pnevma) blows where it wishes, and you hear the sound of it, but cannot tell where it comes from and where it goes. So is everyone who is born of the Spirit (Gk., pnevma)” (Jn. 3:5, 7-8). The opposite is true of the adversary of the Spirit of God, the devil, whom the Apostle calls, “the prince of the power of the air, the spirit (Gk., pnevma) who now works in the sons of disobedience” (Eph. 2:2).
Related to the reality of the wind as a symbol of the Spirit is the existence of “breath.” “Then God formed man out of the dust from the ground, and breathed in his face the breath of life; and man became a living soul” (Gen. 2:7; see also Eccl. 12:7; WSol. 15:11). As with wind, our Lord connects this action to its fulfillment when, after the Resurrection, “He breathed on [the disciples], and said to them, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit’” (Jn. 20:22). The breath of life is more than just a physical, biological function. Like the wind, breath invigorates the body as the pattern of a divine purpose in a godly life.
[N.B. In addition to wind (and breath), both water and fire serve as indications of the Spirit’s presence and work. For instance, see Isa, 4:4; Ez. 36:25-27; Lk. 3:16; Jn. 7:38-39; Acts 2:1-4; et al.]
Holy angels are called “spirits” (Ps. 103:4; Heb. 1:14). These spirits are described as existing in various ranks, or types: simply angels (lit., messengers); archangels (chief angels; e.g., Michael [Jude 9]); seraphim (lit., “burning ones”; Isa. 6:2); cherubim (lit., “winged ones”; Ez. 10:1); thrones, dominions, principalities, authorities, and powers/rulers (Eph. 6:12; Col. 1:16). In distinction from the visible, earthly creation, angelic spirits are called “invisible, or heavenly (incorporeal)” creatures (Gen. 1:1; Lk. 2:13; Eph. 6:12; Col. 1:16).
There are “unclean, or evil, spirits,” otherwise known as demons (i.e., fallen angels; Tob. 6:7; Mk. 5:12-13; Lk. 7:21; Acts 19:12; Eph. 6:12; 2 Pet. 2:4); Satan, the devil or tempter, is simply known as “the evil one,” the leader of the demons (Matt. 6:13; 13:38-39; 25:41). Some demons are named according to the various spiritual, psychological, and bodily passions they cause, e.g., a “lying spirit” (3 Kgm. 22:22), a “deaf and dumb (mute) spirit” (Mk. 9:25), a “spirit of infirmity…bent over” (Lk. 13:11), and a “spirit of divination” (Acts 16:16; lit., pythonic spirit, that is, related to the ancient cult of Apollo).
Human beings have spirits (Num. 16:22; 1 Thes. 5:23; Heb. 12:23). Though each person’s spirit is unique (1 Cor. 2:11), multiple people can share the same characteristic spirit. For instance, “Ephraim (the entire tribe) is an evil spirit” (Hos. 12:2); or, as the Apostle Paul writes, “[Stephanas, Fortunatus, and Achaicus] refreshed my spirit and yours (pl.)” (1 Cor. 16:18). Alongside “the spirit of the sons of men,” Solomon juxtaposes “the spirit of the animal” (Eccl. 3:21), indicating that the “spirit” is the animating principle of the soul and physical body.
As the animating, or controlling, principle of the human organism, the “spirit” can be either good or evil, virtuous or vicious. On one hand, there exist spirits “of jealousy” (Num. 5:14), “of fornication” (Hos. 4:12), “of error” (Isa. 19:14), “of anger” (Isa. 27:8), “of indifference” (Isa. 61:3; Bar. 3:1), “of bondage/slavery” (Rom. 8:15), and “of the world” (1 Cor. 2:12). Saint John writes: “Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits, whether they are of God; because many false prophets have gone out into the world” (1 Jn. 4:1); obviously, there is a spirit of false prophecy, called the “spirit of the antichrist” (1 Jn. 4:3), just as there is a true “spirit of prophecy,” which is “the testimony of Jesus” (Rev. 19:10).
These ungodly spirits are definitely sinful passions having taken root in the souls of human beings. Whether or not these sinful passions indicate possession by personal spirits (demons), human beings who practice these passions have given themselves over to the instigation of the demons and do their bidding. God uses, or allows the influence of, ungodly spirits as a test of the human will – e.g., “The Lord put a lying spirit in the mouth of all these prophets of yours” (2 Chr. 18:22); “the Lord made you drink a spirit of deep sleep/stupor” (Isa. 29:10; Rom. 11:8); such tests result in spiritual disaster for those who spurn God’s direction and choose to turn their own spirit away from Him to follow these different, ungodly spirits (see Num. 14:20-24; 2 Cor. 11:4).
On the other hand, together with the assistance and influence of the spirits which are the holy angels, there exists that “guiding, good Spirit” (Ps. 50:14; 142:10) by whom the spirits of human beings live by God’s design in goodness and virtue. The evil spirits (and/or sinful passions) are many and only serve to divide and separate human beings from God, from each other, and from their own selves. Divided and fragmented in their spirits, human beings devolve into corruption and death. In contrast, the one Spirit of God leads all to unity with God, with all other persons, and with oneself, the Spirit guiding each spirit to realize the same incorruptible divine life.
The one Spirit of God, or Spirit of the Lord, the Holy Spirit, is present with many operations, or gifts (1 Cor. 12:4-7), leading all who exercise these distinctive gifts into the wonderful unity of God Himself (who is Three-in-One, the Trinity), because this Holy Spirit is not created, but He is God Himself. “Now the Lord is the Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror in the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image (Gk., eikon) from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord” (2 Cor. 3:17-18).
Christ Jesus testifies: “But when the Helper (Gk., Parakletos; “Comforter, or Advocate”) comes, whom I shall send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, He will testify of Me” (Jn. 15:26). Later our Lord said: “However, when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth; for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He will speak; and He will tell you things to come. He will glorify Me, for He will take of what is Mine and declare it to you. All things that the Father has are Mine. Therefore I said that He will take of Mine and declare it to you” (Jn. 16:13-15).
The Holy Spirit proceeds from God the Father. The Son (who took on flesh in the womb of the Virgin Mary) is begotten of God the Father (Jn. 1:14). So the one divine Essence of God exists as three distinctive, co-eternal, and co-equal Persons. The Holy Spirit rests in and reveals the Son of God (who took on our human nature) who gives access to God the Father.
The prophet Isaiah explains this trinitarian connection of the Spirit and the Son of God in the flesh (the Person of the God-Man, Messiah/Christ [lit., “Anointed One”]). “The Spirit of God (i.e., the Father) shall rest upon Him, the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and might, the Spirit of knowledge and godliness. The Spirit of the fear of God shall fill Him” (Isa. 11:2-3). This is the same Spirit who “anoints” and “remains” on the Son of God as witnessed by John the Baptist (Isa. 61:1-3; Matt. 3:16; Lk. 4:17-21; Jn. 1:32; Acts 10:37-38). Thus the one Spirit works manifold gifts manifested in the Son of God, Jesus Christ, in communion with God the Father, the Source of the divine Essence. True spirituality begins and ends with the confession of the Holy Trinity Himself: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
The confession of the Trinity evidencing true spirituality most clearly manifests itself in the existence of the Church, precisely because the Church (Gk., ekklesia; “assembly”) is “the body of Christ” (Eph. 1:22-23), the “temple of the Holy Spirit” (1 Cor. 3:16), the “family of God the Father” (Eph. 3:14). True spirituality does not exist apart from the Church because the Church is the divine-human “place” where God mystically (sacramentally) and liturgically works His saving grace making “the spirits of just men perfect” together with “an innumerable company of (holy) angels” (Heb. 12:22, 23). Therefore, the Apostle exhorts in creedal fashion: “[E]ndeavor to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all” (Eph. 4:3-6).
Christ says, “All things have been delivered to Me by My Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father. Nor does anyone know the Father except the Son, and the one to whom the Son wills to reveal Him” (Matt. 11:27). Saint Paul further explains, first quoting from Isaiah (64:3): “’Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor have entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for those who love Him.’ But God has revealed them to us through His Spirit…Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God” (1 Cor. 2:9-10, 12).
With this trinitarian foundation and context, the Apostle Paul uses the word spiritual, and we come to an Orthodox understanding of spirituality. “These things we also speak, not in words which man’s wisdom teaches but which the Holy Spirit teaches, comparing spiritual things with spiritual” (1 Cor. 2:13f.; italics mine). The proper meaning of spiritual(ity) – informed solely by the Holy Spirit – is contrasted with the false alternatives of being carnal (lit., “fleshly”) and/or natural (Gk., psychikos; “psychological”), that is, informed merely by the physical body and/or natural soul (reasoning mind, feelings, and desires).
By ignoring, neglecting, or rejecting the Holy Spirit, man is reduced to life defined by the sensations, wants, and needs of the flesh, and by wisdom gained only by observing his own intellect, emotions, and passions. The results of this situation are catastrophic because such a Spirit-less life is, by definition, incomplete according to God’s design and always errant. Man replaces the guidance of the Spirit with himself; enticed by the spirit of the devil, human beings are trapped in the original sin of pride which leads to the warping, misuse, corruption, and death of both body (flesh) and soul with all their faculties (see Gen. 3; James 3:14-4:7). Human beings were created “in the image and likeness” of God (Gen. 1:26, 27) for their spirits to participate in the workings of the divine Spirit, not to presume to exist as persons independent, or autonomous, from God.
All truly excellent things are accomplished with the help of “the divine Spirit of wisdom, understanding, and knowledge” (Ex. 31:3; 35:31). The Holy Spirit enables us to be children of God with all the rights, privileges, and hope of eternal inheritance that status involves (Rom. 8:14-25). The Holy Spirit leads us by faith in Christ to live a joyous life of incorruptible virtue, no longer enslaved to the fleeting and dying desires of the sinful flesh (Gal. 3:2-4; 4:6-7; 5:16f.). If we are spiritual people, practicing spirituality, then we live according to the Spirit, together with Jesus Christ and God the Father, in the communion of His holy Church both visible and invisible.
