What is the Orthodox Church
The Orthodox Church is the original Christian Church, the Church founded by the Lord Jesus Christ and described in the pages of the New Testament. Its history can be traced in unbroken continuity to Christ and his twelve apostles.
Incredible as it may seem, for more than twenty centuries it has continued its faith and practice intact and unaltered. Today its apostolic doctrine, worship and structure remain intact. The Orthodox Church maintains that the Church is the living Body of Jesus Christ.
Many of us are surprised to learn that for the first 1,000 years of Christian history there was only one Church. It was in the 11th century that a disastrous division occurred between the Orthodox East and the Latin West. Although it had been brewing for years, the so-called “Great Schism” of 1054 represented a formal, and shocking, separation between Rome and Orthodoxy.
At the center of the controversy were two vitally important areas of disagreement: the role of the papacy and the way in which the doctrine should be interpreted.
Differences
One writer has compared Orthodoxy to the faith of Rome and Protestantism in this basic way: Orthodoxy has maintained the New Testament tradition, while Rome has often added to it and Protestantism has subtracted from it.
For example, Rome added to the ancient Church Creed, while numerous Protestant churches rarely study or recite it. Rome has layers of ecclesiastical authority; Much of Protestantism is anti-hierarchical or even “independent” in politics. Rome introduced indulgences and purgatory; In reaction, Protestantism shuns good works and discipline.
In these and other matters, the Orthodox Church has firmly maintained the Apostolic Faith. She has avoided the excesses of papal rule and congregational independence. She understands the clergy as servants of Christ and the people of him and not as a special privileged class. She preserved the Apostles’ doctrine of Christ’s return at the end of the age, of the final judgment and eternal life, and continues to encourage her people to grow in Christ through union with Him. In a word, Christianity Orthodox has maintained the faith “once and for all delivered to the saints.”
