Praying in the Name of the Trinity

Question: 

I am a Ukrainian Orthodox Christian who teaches in a Non-Denominational Christian program in the public school system. Most of my students are of  protestant background. When they pray, they finish off their prayer with  the words, "In Jesus's name.....Amen." I have been told that this is what  the Lord has commanded us to do, when we pray and ask him for things, as  pointed out in the Book of Acts. My question is this, why do we, as  Orthodox Christians, pray in the name of the Trinity while other  Christians don't? What is OUR reasoning/justification for praying in the Trinity?

Very Rev. Ihor Kutash kutash@unicorne.org 

The Orthodox perspective on reality is that it is Trinitarian.  We are created and sustained by One Who is One in Three - Unity in Diversity.  There are ample Scriptural references to all Three Persons of the Trinity.  And also proclamations that there is only One God!  This is also the life-experience of the Church.  She experiences the activity of the Three in One.  Consequently we celebrate and proclaim this revelation in very many ways.  One of them is the Trinitarian character of our prayers, especially the doxologies - the closing of these prayers.  Our Protestant brothers traditionally focus on Jesus'  sayings that we could ask of the Father in His Name.  So they pray to the Father and do it in His Name.  Not a bad thing to do, but somewhat deficient, from the point of view of the Orthodox.  We note that they generally accept the Trinity but have not developed a great deal of expressions of their faith.  Consequently it sometimes appears that they are focused only upon the Second Person of the Trinity, the Godman Jesus of Nazareth.  In fact there have developed sects among them which proclaim that the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are all Jesus (i.e. Unity Pentecostals).  I might add that when we pray in the Name of the Trinity it is very like praying in the Name of Jesus, if we understand that Name not in a narrow literalistic sense, but as a symbol of all that Jesus is, all that He does, all that He inspires, all that He reveals to us, His children, disciples and friends.  For the consciousness of the Trinity is a crucial part of all of this.

Ukrainian Orthodoxy