Welcome to The Eastern Orthodox Church Online, you�re one-stop spot for information on The Eastern Orthodox Church. Who are we? What is it that Gnostics do? How does one join up? These questions will all be answered and more!
What is The Eastern Orthodox Church?
The Eastern Orthodox Church is the second largest Christian community in the world, second to the Roman Catholic Church (Benz 2).
The term orthodox comes from the Greek word meaning correct in belief. We members of the Eastern Orthodox believe that we are full universal Catholics that fully adhere to the original teachings of Jesus and his Twelve Apostles through a preserved chain of traditions passed on through Apostolic Succession (Lacoste 37).
We formed as Christians in the Eastern half of the Roman Empire. Being from the east, we were Greeks and were very different than the Romans who dominated our power system. As Rome became the Home of the Roman Catholic Church, which wasn�t in existence yet, Constantinople became our Holy Capitol (Benz 15).
What we called the Great Schism took place based on a doctrine that he Romans called the filioque clause and also the Eastern Empire questioned the power the Pope should have over the church. This lead to the split in what had been that largest branch of Christianity at the time (Logan 306).
The Eastern Orthodox Church is classified as the parent church of several churches such as The Russian Orthodox Church and The Greek Orthodox church. These churches all meet in a council to agree that each is canonical to The Holy Bible and the Seven Ecumenical Councils. The Oriental Orthodox Church is considered separate because they only follow the first three Ecumenical Councils (Benz 2).
What are our beliefs based upon?
What doctrine we follow is based on a combination of Apostolic Succession and by unanimous decision based on certain councils.
An Apostle�s prot�g� would learn everything that was to be properly passed on to the next generation. Said prot�g� then becomes a Bishop. Said Bishop passes the same doctrines and traditions back on to his own prot�g�s and so on and so forth (Lacoste 37). Besides Apostolic Succession, there were several councils called to order to discuss questions that have arisen that The Bible did not explain explicitly enough to be understood enough to establish a valid doctrine from.
These councils are as follows: the Council of Nicaea in 325, the First Council of Constantinople in 381, the Council of Ephesus in 431, the Council of Chalcedon of 451, the Second Council of Constantinople in 553, the Third Council of Constantinople in 680, and the Second Council of Nicaea in 787 (Lacoste 37).
