The Orthodox Church: An Introduction
The Orthodox Church was founded by our Lord Jesus Christ and is the
living manifestation of His presence in the history of mankind. The
most conspicuous characteristics of Orthodoxy are its rich
liturgical life and its faithfulness to the apostolic tradition. It
is believed by Orthodox Christians that their Church has preserved
the tradition and continuity of the ancient Church in its fullness
compared to other Christian denominations which have departed from
the common tradition of the Church of the first 10 centuries. Today
Orthodox Church numbers approximately 300 million Christians who
follow the faith and practices that were defined by the first seven
ecumenical councils. The word orthodox ("right belief and right
glory") has traditionally been used, in the Greek-speaking Christian
world, to designate communities, or individuals, who preserved the
true faith (as defined by those councils), as opposed to those who
were declared heretical. The official designation of the church in
its liturgical and canonical texts is "the Orthodox Catholic Church"
(gr. catholicos = universal).
The Orthodox Church is a family of "autocephalous" (self governing)
churches, with the Ecumenical (= universal) Patriarch of
Constantinople holding titular or honorary primacy as primus inter
pares (the first among equals). The Orthodox Church is not a
centralized organization headed by a pontiff. The unity of the
Church is rather manifested in common faith and communion in the
sacraments and no one but Christ himself is the real head of the
Church. The number of autocephalous churches has varied in history.
Today there are many: the Church of Constantinople (Istanbul), the
Church of Alexandria (Egypt), the Church of Antioch (with
headquarters in Damascus, Syria), and the Churches of Jerusalem,
Russia, Serbia, Romania, Bulgaria, Georgia, Cyprus, Greece, Poland,
Albania and America. There are also "autonomous" churches (retaining
a token canonical dependence upon a mother see) in Czech and Slovak
republic, Sinai, Crete, Finland, Japan, China and Ukraine. In
addition there is also a large Orthodox ‘Diaspora’ scattered all
over the world and administratively divided among various
jurisdictions (dependencies of the above mentioned autocephalous
churches). The first nine autocephalous churches are headed by
patriarchs, the others by archbishops or metropolitans. These titles
are strictly honorary as all bishops are completely equal in the
power granted to them by the Holy Spirit.
The order of precedence in which the autocephalous churches are
listed does not reflect their actual influence or numerical
importance. The Patriarchates of Constantinople, Alexandria, and
Antioch, for example, present only shadows of their past glory. Yet
there remains a consensus that Constantinople's primacy of honor,
recognized by the ancient canons because it was the capital of the
ancient Byzantine empire, should remain as a symbol and tool of
church unity and cooperation. Modern pan-Orthodox conferences were
thus convoked by the ecumenical patriarch of Constantinople. Several
of the autocephalous churches are de facto national churches, by far
the largest being the Russian Church; however, it is not the
criterion of nationality but rather the territorial principle that
is the norm of organization in the Orthodox Church.
In the wider theological sense "Orthodoxy is not merely a type of
purely earthly organization which is headed by patriarchs, bishops
and priests who hold the ministry in the Church which officially is
called "Orthodox." Orthodoxy is the mystical "Body of Christ," the
Head of which is Christ Himself (see Eph. 1:22-23 and Col. 1:18, 24
et seq.), and its composition includes not only priests but all who
truly believe in Christ, who have entered in a lawful way through
Holy Baptism into the Church He founded, those living upon the earth
and those who have died in the Faith and in piety."
The Great Schism between the Eastern and the Western Church (1054)
was the culmination of a gradual process of estrangement between the
east and west that began in the first centuries of the Christian Era
and continued through the Middle Ages. Linguistic and cultural
differences, as well as political events, contributed to the
estrangement. From the 4th to the 11th century, Constantinople, the
center of Eastern Christianity, was also the capital of the Eastern
Roman, or Byzantine, Empire, while Rome, after the barbarian
invasions, fell under the influence of the Holy Roman Empire of the
West, a political rival. In the West theology remained under the
influence of St. Augustine of Hippo (354-430) and gradually lost its
immediate contact with the rich theological tradition of the
Christian East. In the same time the Roman See was almost completely
overtaken by Franks. Theological differences could have probably
been settled if there were not two different concepts of church
authority. The growth of Roman primacy, based on the concept of the
apostolic origin of the Church of Rome which claimed not only
titular but also jurisdictional authority above other churches, was
incompatible with the traditional Orthodox ecclesiology. The Eastern
Christians considered all churches as sister churches and understood
the primacy of the Roman bishop only as primus inter pares among his
brother bishops. For the East, the highest authority in settling
doctrinal disputes could by no means be the authority of a single
Church or a single bishop but an Ecumenical Council of all sister
churches. In the course of time the Church of Rome adopted various
wrong teachings which were not based in the Tradition and finally
proclaimed the teaching of the Pope's infallibility when teaching ex
cathedra. This widened the gap even more between the Christian East
and West. The Protestant communities which split from Rome in the
course of centuries diverged even more from the teaching of the Holy
Fathers and the Holy Ecumenical Councils. Due to these serious
dogmatic differences the Orthodox Church is not in communion with
the Roman Catholic and Protestant communities. More traditional
Orthodox theologians do not recognize the ecclesial and salvific
character of these Western churches at all, while the more liberal
ones accept that the Holy Spirit acts to a certain degree within
these communities although they do not possess the fullness of grace
and spiritual gifts like the Orthodox Church. Many serious Orthodox
theologians are of the opinion that between Orthodoxy and heterodox
confessions, especially in the sphere of spiritual experience, the
understanding of God and salvation, there exists an ontological
difference which cannot be simply ascribed to cultural and
intellectual estrangement of the East and West but is a direct
consequence of a gradual abandonment of the sacred tradition by
heterodox Christians.
This introduction was
originally created by monks of the Serbian Orthodox Decani Monastery in
Kosovo. It was minimally adapted and edited by the Editor of the
Orthodox
Christian Information Center.
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