Perichoresis

Father, Son, and Holy Spirit relationships

Perichoresis (from περιχώρησις perikhōrēsis, "rotation") is a term referring to the relationship of the three persons of the triune God (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit) to one another. It was first used as a term in Christian theology, by the Church Fathers. The noun first appears in the writings of Maximus Confessor (d. 662) but the related verb perichoreo is found earlier in Gregory of Nazianzus (d. 389/90). Gregory used it to describe the relationship between the divine and human natures of Christ as did John of Damascus (d. 749), who also extended it to the "interpenetration" of the three persons of the Trinity, and it became a technical term for the latter. It has been given recent currency by such contemporary writers as Jürgen Moltmann, Miroslav Volf, John Zizioulas, Richard Rohr, and others. Modern authors extend the original usage as an analogy to cover other interpersonal relationships. The term "co( )inherence" is sometimes used as a synonym. "Circumincession" is a Latin derived term for the same concept.

"Perichoresis" is derived from the Greek peri, "around" and chōreō, "to go, or come". As a compound word, it refers primarily to "going around" or "encompassing", conveying the idea of "two sides of the same coin". Suggested connections with Greek words for dancing ("choreia", spelled with the short letter omicron not the long omega) are not grounded in Greek etymology or early Christian use, but are modern in origin. The Latin equivalent circumincession comes from the Latin circum, "around" and incedere meaning "to go, to step, to march along", and was first used by Burgundio of Pisa (d. 1194). If, as is properly understood, the Father is he who kisses, the Son he who is kissed, then it cannot be wrong to see in the kiss the Holy Spirit, for he is the imperturbable peace of the Father and the Son, their unshakable bond, their undivided love, their indivisible unity. – St. Bernard of Clairvaux, in Sermon 8, Sermons on the Song of Songs
The devotion of themselves to each other in the Spirit by the Father and the Son has content. Not only does the procession of the Spirit from the Father to the Son and from the Son to the Father express their mutual love, as they breathe after each other, but also it gives each to the other. In the procession of the Spirit from the Father, the Father gives himself to the Son; in the procession of the Spirit from the Son to the Father, and in this use of the word "procession" from the Son is meant the sending of the Holy Spirit as the Son teaches that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father, the Son gives himself to the Father in prayer, for the procession of the Spirit, like the begetting of the Son, is the going forth of the being of the Father to the Son and the going forth of the being of the Son to the Father as the Holy Spirit. The property of divine grace in the Trinitarian mission is distinct for each person or hypostase of the Holy Trinity yet united, communing, indwelling, in Trinitarian love. All is God's gift from the Father, through the Son's Incarnation and in the gift of the Holy Spirit. This relational co inherence is often represented as Borromean rings or the Scutum Fidei.

The relationship between the Father, Son and Holy Spirit was not explicitly expressed in the writings of Ante Nicene Fathers exactly as it would later be defined during the First Council of Nicaea (325) and the First Council of Constantinople (381), namely as one substance (ousia) and three persons (hypostaseis). A hermeneutic of the one in three principle slowly approached the synthesis understood today as perichoresis.

The Carmelite mystic Saint John of the Cross sketched his vision of this perspective (from the head of the cross looking down upon those gathered at the foot) corresponding to the Father's love radiating down on the priest and congregation worshiping at the altar. Salvador Dalí was inspired to paint his monumental work Christ of Saint John of the Cross after a spiritual crisis saw him revert to his childhood faith upon reading John's classic Dark Night of the Soul.

Protestant and Catholics differ in their interpretation of communio as model of ecclesial unity binding on members of the Mystical body of Christ. A dyadically reduced trinitarianism underpins the Barthian school of thought. "The Father remains the sole principle, because the Son has nothing he has not received from this source. But the Trinity is asymmetrical reciprocity, not a symmetrical hierarchy proceeding from the Father. Its asymmetry is precisely the root of its dynamism as eternal Act, eternal "perichoresis" On this logic, Barth's pneumatological minimalism cannot be inherently rooted in the filioque. My own hunch is that Barth's binitarianism is more deeply planted in that other culprit Jenson identifies: the "merely two sided understanding of human community and so of historical reality, inherited from the 'I Thou' tradition of 19th century German philosophical anthropology"
― Aaron Riches, "Church, Eucharist, and Predestination in Barth and de Lubac: CONVERGENCE AND DIVERGENCE IN COMMUNIO" Communio 35 (Winter 2008).