With some 220 million baptized members, the Eastern Orthodox Church—officially known as the Orthodox Catholic Church and commonly referred to as the Orthodox Church—is the second-largest Christian denomination. It functions as a communion of autonomous churches, with local synods serving as each church’s governing body.13]
Although they acknowledge the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople as primus inter pares, or “first among equals,” the church lacks a central authority, either theological or administrative, comparable to that of the pope that leads the Catholic Church.[14, 15][16, 17, 18, 18] The Eastern Orthodox Church, one of the oldest religious organizations still in existence, has had a significant impact on the history and cultures of Eastern and Southeastern Europe, Western Asia, and the Caucasus.19]
The foundation of Eastern Orthodox theology is the Bible and holy tradition, which includes the teachings of the Church Fathers and the dogmatic rulings of the seven ecumenical councils. The church holds that its bishops are the heirs of Christ’s apostles and that it is the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic church that Jesus Christ founded in his Great Commission [20].21]
It asserts that it follows the traditional practices of the early Christian faith. Its patriarchates, which are descended from the pentarchy, as well as those of other autonomous and autocephalous churches, show different forms of hierarchical structure. It acknowledges seven major sacraments, the primary one being the Eucharist, which is observed liturgically in synaxis. The church says that the sacrificial bread and wine become holy when a priest consecrates them.
Up to the East-West Schism in 1054, the Churches of Constantinople, Alexandria, Jerusalem, and Antioch were in communion with the Church of Rome, with a few exceptions such as the Acacian or Photian schisms. The growing theological, political, and cultural disagreements between those churches—especially over the pope’s authority—climaxed in the 1054 schism.
Both the Church of the East and the different Oriental Orthodox Churches participated in this communion prior to the Council of Ephesus in AD 431 and AD 451 respectively, with the main reason for their separation being divergences in Christology.
In Russia, Ukraine, Romania, Greece, Belarus, Serbia, Bulgaria, Moldova, Georgia, North Macedonia, Cyprus, and Montenegro, the Eastern Orthodox Church is the most prominent religious denomination. It is also widely accepted and dominant in Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Syria, Iraq, and Lebanon, and it has a notable presence in Germany, Spain, the United States, and Uzbekistan.
The bulk of Eastern Orthodox Christians presently reside in Siberia, Eastern and Southeastern Europe, despite their origins in Western Asia. The majority of Eastern Orthodox Christians reside in Russia and the other post-Soviet states.21]23] The Eastern Mediterranean and the ancient Byzantine territories of North Africa are home to some of the oldest Orthodox communities in the Middle East. These communities are vanishing as a result of forced migration brought on by escalating religious persecution.24]
Name and characteristics of Eastern Orthodox Church
Definition
The definition of the Eastern Orthodox Church is the group of Eastern Christians who acknowledge the seven ecumenical councils and who are typically in communion with the Patriarchates of Jerusalem, Antioch, Alexandria, and the Ecumenical Patriarchate. The churches of the Eastern Orthodox Church “are defined positively by their adherence to the dogmatic definitions of the seven [ecumenical] councils, by the strong sense of not being a sect or a denomination but simply continuing the Christian church, and, despite their varied origins, by adherence to the Byzantine rite” . The fact that those churches reject the immediate and universal sovereignty of the pope defines them negatively.(26]
The Eastern Orthodox churches recognize the following seven ecumenical councils: Nicaea I, Nicaea II, Ephesus, Chalcedon, Constantinople I, and Constantinople III.28]
Name
Greek was the major liturgical language of the church and the most widely spoken common language in the demographic areas where the Byzantine Empire thrived from antiquity until the first millennium. Greek was also the language used to write the New Testament. Because of this, even before to the Great Schism of 1054, the eastern churches were sometimes referred to as “Greek” (as opposed to the “Roman” or “Latin” church, which employed a Latin translation of the Bible).
Similar to how “Catholic” denoted connection with the Catholic Church, “Greek Orthodox” or “Greek Catholic” denoted a church’s communion with Constantinople after 1054.50]
The church is still referred to as “Eastern Greek” in Hungarian (Gorögkeleti). But with time, this identification as Greek became more and more hazy. In numerous areas where there were no Greek immigrants and no native speakers of the Greek language, missionaries introduced Eastern Orthodoxy.
Furthermore, certain churches were converted to the Catholic Church as a result of the power battles between Rome and Constantinople over portions of Southeastern Europe. The Catholic Church then used the term “Greek Catholic” to denote their ongoing observance of Byzantine rites. Greek is still the language of worship for a small percentage of Eastern Orthodox followers today.50]
Therefore, “Orthodox” denotes both the religion and communion with the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, while “Eastern” denotes the geographical component in the church’s birth and development.51] Other Eastern Orthodox Christian churches are sometimes identified as “Oriental Orthodox” since they are not in communion with either the Eastern Orthodox Church or the Catholic Church.
The popular designation “Eastern Orthodox Church” prevents accidental confusion with the Catholic Church, even if the Eastern Orthodox Church continues to officially refer to itself as “Catholic” for reasons of universality.
Orthodoxy
The term “the catholic Church” (he katholike ekklesia) was first used in a letter from Ignatius of Antioch to the Smyrnaeans, which was written in or around AD 110. The note reads: “Wheresoever the bishop shall appear, there let the people be, even as where Jesus may be, there is the universal [katholike] Church.”52]
The Christian Church was thus called the “one, holy, catholic (from the Greek καθoλική, ‘according to the whole, universal'[53]) and apostolic Church” nearly from the beginning by Christians.20] According to the Eastern Orthodox Church, it is the surviving and preserved form of the same ancient church.
The Roman Catholic Church, the Anglican Communion, the Assyrian Church, and the Oriental Orthodox are among the various Christian denominations that make a comparable assertion. According to the Eastern Orthodox perspective, the Assyrians and Orientals abandoned the Orthodox Church in the years that followed the Third and Fourth Ecumenical Councils of Ephesus (431 and 451, respectively), because they could not agree with the councils’ doctrines of Christology.
Similar to this, the churches in Rome and Constantinople split during the so-called East-West Schism, which is generally attributed to the year 1054, though it actually happened more gradually.
The assertion of catholicism, or the idea of being one with the ancient Church, is significant to each of these churches for a variety of theological reasons that are more relevant to their individual internal workings than to their current religious divisions from one another. The fundamental reason that the distinction between which church split out from which other is meaningful at all is because of what it means to adhere to a true faith; the problems are as old as the schisms.
The Eastern Orthodox Church’s profound interpretation is initially evident in how it employs the term “Orthodox,” which is a combination of the Greek words orthos (“straight,” “correct,” “true,” and “right”) and doxa (“common belief,” derived from the archaic verb δoκέω-δοκῶ, which translates to “to believe,” “to think,” “to consider,” and “to.”
The terms “correct belief” and “true worship” originate from the dual meanings of doxa, which include “glory” or “glorification” (of God by the church and of the church by God), particularly in the context of worship. Collectively, these convey the essence of an essential lesson regarding the unity of worship and belief and their function in uniting the church around Christ.[54, 55]
The term Pravoslavie (Cyrillic: Дравославиe), which means “correctness of glorification,” is used by the Slavic churches to refer to what is considered English Orthodoxy, whereas Martlmadidebeli is used by the Georgians.
To distinguish it from western Christendom—the geographic West, which first came to refer to the Catholic communion and later also the numerous Protestant and Anglican branches—the name “Eastern Church”—the geographic east in the East–West Schism—has been employed.
The term “eastern” denotes that, despite expanding globally, the Eastern Orthodox Church still has the largest concentrations of adherents in the eastern region of the Christian world. Many ethnic or national jurisdictional designations, or the more inclusive terms “Eastern Orthodox”, “Orthodox Catholic”, or just “Orthodox”, are used by Orthodox Christians around the globe.51]
The catholic religion as it is preserved in sacred tradition is what ties Orthodox Christians together. Scripture and worship are the two main ways that that faith is expressed[57], with the latter occurring primarily through the Divine Liturgy and baptism.In [58]
The boundaries of even this test, however, may become hazy when disagreements emerge because of jurisdictional recognition rather than doctrine. The Eastern Orthodox Church has expanded over the globe and into the west.
Regardless of their ethnicity or nationality, place of birth, local customs, or jurisdiction, all members of the Eastern Orthodox Church profess the same faith. The understandings and methods by which that unity of faith is passed down across temporal, geographic, and cultural barriers are included in holy tradition. It is a continuity that is only possible because Christians themselves embody it.(61)
It is neither static or based on following rules; rather, it is the exchange of insights that originate from the inside out and are consistent with the views of others, including those who have lived a long time ago. The church declares that, in order to uphold the integrity of the faith within the church as indicated by the scriptural promises, the Holy Spirit preserves the unity and consistency of holy tradition.In [62]
Catholicity
The Church of Eastern Orthodoxy regards itself as both catholic and orthodox.In [66] Eastern Orthodox ecclesiology is based on the Nicene Creed and its doctrine of the Catholicity of the Church. In its original sense, the phrase “Catholicism of the Church” (Greek: Καθoλικότης τῆς Ἐκκλησίας) refers to the universality of the Christian Church, centered around Christ. Consequently, unlike the Catholic Church, which has a single earthly center, the Eastern Orthodox understanding of catholicism is not centered around a single see.
Owing to the Catholic Church’s prominence in the west, where the English language originated, the terms “catholic” and “catholicity” are occasionally used to allude particularly to that church.
Nonetheless, the more widely accepted dictionary meaning for everyday usage is still the one that is shared by other languages, suggesting universality and breadth and demonstrating a thorough reach.In [67] Regarding its unity with Christ in faith, the Christian Church—which is connected with the first church established by Christ and his apostles—is said to as catholic, or universal, in a Christian context.In [68]
Similar to Christ, faith in him and unity with him are indivisible, making the Christian Church “universal,” unbroken, and inclusive of everyone who shares that faith. Kallistos Ware, an orthodox bishop, has referred to that as “simple Christianity”.In [68] The church typically refers to itself as the “Catholic Church,”[69][70] whose faith is the “Orthodox faith,” in the sense of early and patristic terminology.
The term “one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church” is also contained in the Nicene Creed and is used throughout Orthodox worship, such as during the Divine Liturgy’s catechumenal litany.
Following their mutual excommunication during the East-West Schism in 1054, the churches in Rome and Constantinople believed that the other had left the genuine church and replaced it with a lesser but still Catholic one. Both the “Orthodox Catholic Church” and the “Roman Catholic Church” (also known as the “Catholic Church”) kept the “Catholic” portion of their titles, which were characterized by their intercommunion with either Rome or Constantinople.