Holy Spirit, also called HOLY GHOST (“ghost” being derived from old Germanic words meaning “spirit”), in Christian belief, the third person of the Trinity. The Holy Spirit is viewed as the main agent of man’s restoration to his original natural state through communion in Christ’s body and, thus, as the principle of life in the Christian community. Those expressions of church life that perpetuate the gospel of Jesus Christ—doctrine, office, polity, sacraments, the power to loosen and bind, and prayer—are understood as the endowment of the Holy Spirit. It is, however, in the activity of persons that the Holy Spirit most effectively guarantees the continuity of the church in its adaptation to the requirements of its existence in history.
The imagery of the New Testament witnesses to the presence of the Holy Spirit at the incarnation, at the beginning of the public ministry of Christ (his Baptism), and, following Christ’s Resurrection, at Pentecost, which is usually considered to be the beginning of the Christian community. Numerous outpourings of the Spirit are mentioned in the Acts of the Apostles, in which healing, prophecy, exorcism (the expelling of demons), and glossolalia (speaking in tongues) are particularly associated with the activity of the Spirit.
Christian writers have seen in various references to the Spirit of Yahweh in the Old Testament an anticipation of the doctrine of the Holy Spirit. The Hebrew word ruat (usually translated “spirit”) is often found in texts referring to the free and unhindered activity of God, either in creating or in revitalizing creation, especially in connection with the prophetic word or messianic expectation. There was, however, no belief in a separate divine person in biblical Judaism; in fact, the New Testament itself is not entirely clear in this regard. One indication of such belief is the promise of another helper, or intercessor (paraclete), that is found in the Gospel According to John.

The earliest Christians were more interested in the saving presence of Godamong them than in abstract theological reasoning concerning the nature of God.
The definition that the Holy Spirit was a distinct divine Person equal in essence to the Father and the Son and not subordinate to them came at the Council of Constantinople in AD 381, following challenges to its divinity. The Eastern and Western churches have since viewed the Holy Spirit as the bond, the fellowship, or the mutual charity between Father and Son; they are absolutely united in the Spirit. The relationship of the Holy Spirit to the other Persons of the Trinity has been described in the West as proceeding from both the Father and the Son, whereas in the East it has been held that the procession is from the Father through the Son.
Most Christians have experienced the Holy Spirit more in the sacramental life of the church than in such speculation. From apostolic times, the formula for Baptism has been Trinitarian. Confirmation (in the Eastern Orthodox Church, chrismation) although not accepted by most Protestants as a sacrament, has been closely allied with the role of the Holy Spirit in the church. The Eastern Orthodox Church has stressed the role of the descent of the Spirit upon the worshipping congregation and upon the eucharistic bread and wine in the prayer known as the epiclesis. The pledge of grace that characterizes the sacraments is indicative of the eschatological role that is attributed to the Holy Spirit. Various characteristics of the believer have been called gifts of the Holy Spirit in view of its role in the basic gift of salvation. From the earliest centuries of the church, various groups, discontented with the lack of freedom, active charity, or vitality in the institutional church, have called for a greater sensitivity to the ongoing outpourings of the Holy Spirit; one of many such movements was the Pentecostal movement of the early 1970s.


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