The Orthodox Church is a communion of Local Churches worldwide bound together by apostolic succession, history, faith, the Creed, Ecumenical Councils, canons and Divine Liturgy.
Our Lord, Jesus Christ founded His Church through the Apostles. By the grace of the Holy Spirit received at Pentecost, the Apostles established the primary Church throughout the ancient world. This moment marks the beginning of Apostles’ mission in the world. The Orthodox Church believes that She has maintained a direct and unbroken continuity of love, faith, and order with the Church of Christ that was born at Pentecost.
The center of the early Christian movement was in the Eastern world, where the Apostles founded most of Churches (St. Paul founded the Church of Antioch; St. Peter and St. James, the Church of Jerusalem; St. Andrew the Church of Constantinople; St. Mark, the Church of Alexandria; St. Peter and St. Paul, the Church of Rome). Also, the Ecumenical Councils which formulated doctrines that Christians of all orthodox traditions accept as normative (that is, the first seven from 325 to 787 A.D.), took place in the Eastern world.
For the first thousand years of Christianity, the five historic Churches (now Patriarchates) formed a cohesive whole and were in communion with each other. The Church was essentially One and Eastern and Western Christians were united in believing in the Holy Scripture, the Creed (which was formulated during the first Ecumenical Council in Nicaea and expanded during the Second Ecumenical Council in Constantinople) and the teachings of the first seven Ecumenical Councils. These teachings include: (a) the belief in the Holy Trinity; (b) the divine and human natures of Christ; (c) His birth from the Most-Holy Theotokos and Ever-Virgin Mary; (d) His Resurrection; (e) His Ascension; (f) the descent of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost; (g) the future Second Coming of Christ; (h) the final judgment and life in the world to come.
After the split of the Roman Empire into the Western Roman Empire and the Eastern Roman Empire (the Byzantine Empire) in the 4th century A.D., both empires started their own independent governing having their capitals at Rome (for the West) and at Constantinople (for the East). However, as time went on, their differences grew, and the two branches of Christendom began to drift apart. Differences in languages, cultural and political contrasts led to increasing conflicts between the East and the West. The Western Empire was Roman Catholic and used Latin as official administrative language, while the Eastern Empire was dominated by the Eastern Orthodox religion, had a more diverse culture and used Byzantine Greek as official language. Following multiple barbarian invasions, the Western Roman Empire eventually collapsed in 476 A.D. (“The Fall of Rome”), while the Eastern Roman Empire continued to thrive.
The ever-growing differences and conflicts between the West and the East culminated with the proclamation of the Great Schism in 1054 A.D. Although the process itself had been taking place for several centuries already, the Great Schism between the two halves of Christianity was centered on two major controversies: (a) the Papal authority and (b) the Filioque clause unilaterally inserted in the Creed. The Roman Patriarch pulled away from the other four, pursuing a claim of supremacy and universal headship of the Church. Five centuries later, the Protestant Reformation emerged as an attempt to reform the Roman Catholic Church. Quickly after that, various Christian denominations began to multiply.
Constantinople then rose to primacy among the other Patriarchates since it was the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire. However, its primacy has been a primacy of honor, not of jurisdiction.
In 1453, a crucial event occurred in the Orthodox world, with the conquering of Constantinople by the Turkish Sultan Mohammed II (“The Fall of Constantinople”). The Greek-speaking churches fell under the yoke of Islam, and for nearly 500 years labored in servitude, only emerging again with the Balkan Revolutions of the 19th century and the First World War.
Estimations show there are more than 200 Christian denominations in the U.S. and 45,000 globally. However, the Orthodox Church is the only legitimate and historical continuation of the Primary Church. She has the same faith, the same spirit and the same ethos.
Orthodox Christianity constitutes the second largest Christian faith community in the world, with over 250 million adherents, located largely in Eastern Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Asia. Brought to America by missionaries, emigrants and political refugees, Orthodoxy has roughly three million members here and is one of the fastest – growing Christian churches.
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