Prayer "The King of Heaven". Prayer to the Holy Spirit "Heavenly King ..."

Popular and beloved in the Orthodox Church, the prayer "Heavenly King, Comforter ..." is traditionally associated with the Holy Spirit - the third person of the Trinity, according to Orthodox Trinitology. Predominantly common in the Church Slavonic translation, which is reflected in the specifics of the vocalization - correct reading and pronouncing the text. Prayer to the "King of Heaven" with emphasis is given in any Orthodox prayer-book.

Origin

The history of this prayer is a thousand years old. Perhaps a little more. In any case, it is not known to the liturgical statute of Constantinople IX century, which allows a high degree of confidence to refer the time of its appearance towards the end of the IX-X centuries.

Modern use

Nowadays it is most often used as an invocation - the prayer calling of God before the beginning of group or personal prayers. In Orthodox usage this is called "the beginning of the ordinary", which includes, in addition to the above, the so-called Trisagion, the prayer of the Holy Trinity and "Our Father".

In worship, it is used as a sticheron for Vespers, dedicated to the feast of Pentecost or the Day of the Holy Trinity. Probably, it was from the temple service that the prayer "King of Heaven" was transferred to the tradition of cell and home prayer practice.

The authorship and sources of the origin of this prayer, unfortunately, are unknown. It can equally well be the creation of a hermit monk, emperor-hymnograf or the adaptation of a "heretical" prayer, first born, for example, in iconoclastic circles. Similar precedents in Orthodox hymnography are not uncommon.

Orthodox interpretation

"The King of Heaven" - a prayer, the text of which is filled with dogmatic meaning for the Orthodox consciousness. As already noted, this appeal is addressed to the Holy Spirit. It is important to take into account that the Orthodox faith, being monotheistic, recognizes the three incarnations of the One God. Each person can be treated separately, as an individual. At the same time, their essential unity is postulated.

Heavenly King - the title, which is vested in the Most High. Extrapolation to God of earthly political regalia dates back to Judaism, where God Yahweh is called the lord sitting on the cherubim as on the throne (see Ps 79: 2). Another source, reinforcing this title, is the Roman Empire, in which Caesar concentrates the fullness of power and authority. Accordingly, the sphere of the divine is likened to the kingdom with the God-emperor at the head. This can also be seen in the examples of iconography, where Christ is depicted sitting on a throne in royal dress. And because of the essential unity, the royal dignity is appropriated to all persons of the Trinity.

Further, God is called the Comforter, the Spirit of truth, omnipresent and all fulfilling. The latter definition means filling yourself with the whole space in the universe, and not fulfilling all human desires.

The treasury of goods and the giver of life are the final epithets and titles. They are followed by a request for descent: "Come and dwell in us." Otherwise, it can be translated as "dwell among us." This is the key phrase in all prayer. Its semantics lie in the prophecy of the prophet Joel about the outpouring of the Spirit and its prophetic gifts (see Joel 2: 28-30). According to Orthodox doctrine, the prophecy was fulfilled on the fiftieth day after the ascension of Christ. In describing these events, the book of Acts informs us that Christ, "being exalted by the right hand of God and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, poured out ..." (Acts 2:33). Thus, the "King of Heaven" prayer, as the liturgical text of the feast of Pentecost, is a petition not just for the indulgence of the Holy Spirit, but for the outpouring of His presence, the charismatic anointing and the message of the mystery gift. The New Testament tradition to this anointing with the Spirit is John the Baptist 's prophecy of a messiah who will baptize his disciples with the "Holy Spirit" (Matthew 3:11). It also refers to words attributed to Jesus himself: "... I will pray the Father, and he will give you ... the Spirit of truth" (John 14: 16-17).

Theology and applied importance of the prayer "The King of Heaven"

In the light of this pneumological anointing, the "King of Heaven" prayer is used at the beginning of every group worship and rite, as well as in personal prayers, to make the prayers offered by God inspired, filled with the presence and action of the Spirit.

The concluding words of prayer are a request for the purification and salvation of the soul. These are quite standard elements for orthodox hymnography.

Alternative pneumatology

"The King of Heaven" is a prayer, the text and semantics of which refer to the Holy Spirit - the face of the Christian Trinity God. However, it must be remembered that the very concept of the Holy Spirit came to Christianity from Judaism, where the Holy Spirit was viewed more as an attribute of God, the personification of His action and the manifestation of divine power. The spirit was, according to the beliefs of the prophets and patriarchs of the Tanakh, an impersonal force or energy of the Most High, and if personified, it is often rather conditional - as an artistic device. Although there were exceptions, most likely, early Christians of orthodox orientation imagined the Holy Spirit in a similar way. This can be said on the basis of the writings of the first fathers of the church and theologians of the pre-Nicene era. This early tradition of orthodoxy, in contrast to the innovations of Catholicism, was preserved by the Arian church. Even in the Catholic environment after the First Ecumenical Council, the doctrine of the personality of the Holy Spirit had many opponents, as evidenced by the forced diplomatic silence on this issue of St. Basil the Great - the Cappadocian theologian who, in an alliance with the Holy. St. Gregory the Theologian and St. Gregory of Nyssa created, contrary to the early patristic subordinationism, the modern Orthodox-Catholic doctrine of the Trinity and the equality of its persons.

The Holy Spirit, like the Wisdom of God

Of course, the early Christianity was not exhausted by these two schools. Even before the birth of Christianity in the Jewish environment, the Holy Spirit (Hebrew Ruach ha Kadosh - by the way, the feminine gender) was identified with divine wisdom (Hebrew Hohma). References to this are contained in the very text of the Old Testament, where the Spirit is repeatedly called the Spirit of Wisdom, for example: "The Spirit of the Lord shall rest on him, the spirit of wisdom ..." (Isaiah 11: 2). Therefore, the Spirit, as personified Wisdom, could be represented by some Jews and adepts of Christian communities of the Gnostic sense as a female hypostasis of God. Confirmation of this can be found, for example, in the Gnostic gospel of Philip, where the Spirit is called a virgin.

In Greek, the word "pneuma" ("spirit") is of the middle genus and is interpreted in favor of the preferred tradition.

Gnostic implication

Wisdom-Hochma-Sophia, she is also the Holy Spirit - one of the most important characters of Gnostic mythology. Summarizing the contradictory information about it, it can be noted that because of Sophia's mistake, a visible world of matter appeared - the world of evil. Thanks to Sofia, the salvation of the fallen humanity from the captivity of matter also occurs. Hints of the original Gnostic-sophiological sense of early Christianity can be found even in the canonical text of the New Testament: "And Sofia is justified by all her offspring" (Luke 7:35).

Taking all this into account, prayer to the Heavenly King appears as a prayer to the Queen of Heaven. Theotokos, that is, the Virgin Mary, there is no place in soteriology and on the heavenly throne. This is evidenced by the Gospel of Philip: "Some said that Mary conceived from the Holy Spirit. They are mistaken ... When was it that a woman should suffer from a woman? "(Phil.

Attempt of Gnostic interpretation

Prayer to the Holy Spirit "King of Heaven", subjected to a gnostic reinterpretation, allows us to interpret it as the vocation of Wisdom - the female divine hypostasis or emanation. Sophia is the Spirit of truth, because it keeps and communicates to the initiates the secret of the true good God in spite of the deceitfulness of the material world and its evil demiurge god. Therefore, it is also a treasury of goods. The last epithet in the context of all the Gnostic speculations on the topic of the heavenly treasure is much more complicated than it might seem at first sight. But this is beyond the scope of this article. The giver of life is Wisdom because it is through her that the existence of life is made possible in matter, and according to Tanah, God created the world through Sophia (see Proverbs 8:22). Cleansing from all defilement in such a perspective means purification from the contamination of matter - spiritual ignorance, delusion and passions. Salvation of the soul is understood as the liberation from the power of the material cosmos and its rulers with the subsequent return to the divine fullness - the pleroma. In this scenario, the "King of Heaven" is not addressed to God. Rather, it is a prayer to the heavenly protector - the hypostasis of divine femininity and wisdom.

Conclusion

Of course, such an interpretation is somewhat arbitrary, especially given the absence of realistic grounds for assuming the Gnostic sources of this invocation. Nevertheless, the prayer "King of Heaven" is wider than its confessional roots, and because of its universality allows us to adapt ourselves to various theological systems, as previously pagan anthems were adapted to Christian and Jewish needs.