Elder Sophrony on Knowledge of the Divine Person

     O Thou Who art
     O God the Father, Almighty Master:
     Who has created us and brought us into life:
     Vouchsafe that we may know Thee,
     The One true God.
                 —prayer of Archimandrite Sophrony

Icon of Elder Sophrony

     One of the most mis-understood theological terms in all of Christian theology is that of the Divine Persons (Hypostasis) of the God that we Christians hold to be Triune.  It is just as misunderstood among Christians, unfortunately, as it is among pagans, atheists, and modern secularists.
     One of the clearest voices in recent times on Triune theology was/is that of Archimandrite Sophrony of blessed memory, also known as Elder Sophrony of Essox.  Elder Sophrony knew well the Trinity because he had experienced the Triune Being in the depths of contemplative prayer.
     Here is what he had to say about the Divine Persons in his book His Life is Mine:

     The revelation of God as I AM THAT I AM proclaims the personal character of the Absolute God which is the core of His life.  To interpret this revelation, the Fathers adopted the term hypostasis, which first and foremost conveys actuality and can be applied to all things, to man or to God.  In many instances it was used as a synonym for essence.  (Substance is the exact Latin translation.)  In the second Epistle to the Corinthians (2 Cor. 11.17) hypostasis denotes sober reality and is translated into English as confidence or assurance.  In the Epistle to the Hebrews, the term describes the Person of the Father: "Who being... the express image of his Person."  Other renderings to be found in the same Epistle are substance—"Now faith is the substance of things hoped for"—and very being—"the stamp of God's very being."  So then, these three words, Person, substance, very being, taken together impart the content of the Greek theological expression hypostasis, to be understood as comprising, on the one hand, the notion of Countenance, Person, while, on the other, stressing the cardinal importance of the personal dimension in Being.  In the present text, the terms Hypostasis and Person are identical in meaning.