An Open Letter to His Holiness Pope Leo XIV
On the Zoroastrian Origin of the Holy Spirit, and a Request That Has Waited 1,800 Years Your Holiness, We write to you not as adversaries but as elders of the oldest monotheistic faith on earth — the faith that gave your tradition several of its most sacred concepts, and has waited nearly two millennia for that contribution to be acknowledged. We are Zoroastrians. Our prophet, Zarathustra, preached the worship of one God — Ahura Mazda, the Wise Lord — at least a thousand years before the birth of Jesus of Nazareth.
What this resource contributes
On the Zoroastrian Origin of the Holy Spirit, and a Request That Has Waited 1,800 Years Your Holiness, We write to you not as adversaries but as elders of the oldest monotheistic faith on earth — the faith that gave your tradition several of its most sacred concepts, and has waited nearly two millennia for that contribution to be acknowledged. We are Zoroastrians. Our prophet, Zarathustra, preached the worship of one God — Ahura Mazda, the Wise Lord — at least a thousand years before the birth of Jesus of Nazareth. Our scriptures, the Gathas, are among the oldest liturgical texts still in active ritual use anywhere in the world. We are writing to you because of a single sentence written by one of your own Church Fathers.
Topics and source signals
Primary sources detected
Gathas · Avesta · Bundahishn
Scholars detected
Mary Boyce · R.C. Zaehner