Eastern Orthodox Church
The Eastern Orthodox Church, officially the Orthodox Catholic Church,[9][10][11][12] and also called the Greek Orthodox Church or simply the Orthodox Church, is the second-largest Christian church,[a][13][14] with approximately 230 million baptised members. It operates as a communion of autocephalous churches, each governed by its bishops via local synods.[15] The church has no central doctrinal or governmental authority analogous to the head of the Catholic Church (the pope). Nevertheless, the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople is recognised by them as primus inter pares ("first among equals"),[16][17][18][19][20] a title formerly given to the patriarch of Rome. As one of the oldest surviving religious institutions in the world, the Eastern Orthodox Church has played an especially prominent role in the history and culture of Eastern and Southeastern Europe.[21]
This article is about the Eastern Orthodox Church as an institution. For its religion, doctrine and tradition, see Eastern Orthodoxy.
Orthodox Catholic Church
Koine Greek, Church Slavonic, and other vernacular[2][3][4]
Jesus Christ, according to sacred tradition
Orthodox Church, Orthodox Christian Church, Orthodox Catholic Church
Eastern Orthodox theology is based on the Scriptures and holy tradition, which incorporates the dogmatic decrees of the seven ecumenical councils, and the teaching of the Church Fathers. The church teaches that it is the one, holy, catholic and apostolic church established by Jesus Christ in his Great Commission,[22] and that its bishops are the successors of Christ's apostles.[23] It maintains that it practises the original Christian faith, as passed down by holy tradition. Its patriarchates, descending from the pentarchy, and other autocephalous and autonomous churches, reflect a variety of hierarchical organisation. It recognises seven major sacraments, of which the Eucharist is the principal one, celebrated liturgically in synaxis. The church teaches that through consecration invoked by a priest, the sacrificial bread and wine become the body and blood of Christ. The Virgin Mary is venerated in the Eastern Orthodox Church as the God-bearer and honoured in devotions.
The Churches of Constantinople, Alexandria, Jerusalem, and Antioch—except for some breaks of communion such as the Photian schism or the Acacian schism—shared communion with the Church of Rome until the East–West Schism in 1054. The 1054 schism was the culmination of mounting theological, political, and cultural disputes, particularly over the authority of the pope, between those churches. Before the Council of Ephesus in AD 431, the Church of the East also shared in this communion, as did the various Oriental Orthodox Churches before the Council of Chalcedon in AD 451, all separating primarily over differences in Christology.
The Eastern Orthodox Church is the primary religious denomination in Russia, Ukraine, Romania, Greece, Belarus, Serbia, Bulgaria, Georgia, Moldova, North Macedonia, Cyprus and Montenegro. Roughly half of Eastern Orthodox Christians live in the post Eastern Bloc countries, mostly in Russia.[24][25] The communities in the former Byzantine regions of North Africa, the Eastern Mediterranean are among the oldest Orthodox communities from the Middle East, which are decreasing due to forced migration driven by increased religious persecution.[26][27] Eastern Orthodox communities outside Western Asia, Asia Minor, Caucasia and Eastern Europe, including those in North America, Western Europe, and Australia, have been formed through diaspora, conversions, and missionary activity.
Name and characteristics[edit]
Definition[edit]
The Eastern Orthodox Church is defined as the Eastern Christians which recognise the seven ecumenical councils and usually are in communion with the Ecumenical Patriarchate, the Patriarchate of Alexandria, the Patriarchate of Antioch, and the Patriarchate of Jerusalem. The Eastern Orthodox churches "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". Those churches are negatively defined by their rejection of papal immediate and universal supremacy.[28]
The seven ecumenical councils recognised by the Eastern Orthodox churches are: Nicaea I, Constantinople I, Ephesus, Chalcedon, Constantinople II, Constantinople III, and Nicaea II.[29][30] Those churches consider the Quinisext Council "shar[es] the ecumenical authority of Constantinople III.[30] "By an agreement that appears to be in place in the [Eastern] Orthodox world, possibly the council held in 879 to vindicate the Patriarch Photius will at some future date be recognized as the eighth [ecumenical] council" by the Eastern Orthodox Church.[29]
Western Rite Orthodoxy exists both outside and inside Eastern Orthodoxy. Within Eastern Orthodoxy, it is practised by a vicariate of the Antiochian Orthodox church.[31]
Name[edit]
In keeping with the church's teaching on universality and with the Nicene Creed, Eastern Orthodox authorities such as Raphael of Brooklyn have insisted that the full name of the church has always included the term "Catholic", as in "Holy Orthodox Catholic Apostolic Church".[32][33]
The official name of the Eastern Orthodox Church is the "Orthodox Catholic Church".[9][10][11][34] It is the name by which the church refers to itself[35][36][37][38][39][40] and which is issued in its liturgical or canonical texts.[41][42] Eastern Orthodox theologians refer to the church as Catholic.[43][44] This name and longer variants containing "Catholic" are also recognised and referenced in other books and publications by secular or non-Eastern Orthodox writers.[45][46][47][48][49][50] The catechism of Philaret (Drozdov) of Moscow published in the 19th century is titled: The Longer Catechism of the Orthodox, Catholic, Eastern Church[51] (Russian: Пространный христианский катехизис православныя, кафолическия восточныя Церкви).
From ancient times through the first millennium, Greek was the most prevalent shared language in the demographic regions where the Byzantine Empire flourished, and Greek, being the language in which the New Testament was written, was the primary liturgical language of the church. For this reason, the eastern churches were sometimes identified as "Greek" (in contrast to the "Roman" or "Latin" church, which used a Latin translation of the Bible), even before the Great Schism of 1054. After 1054, "Greek Orthodox" or "Greek Catholic" marked a church as being in communion with Constantinople, much as "Catholic" did for communion with the Catholic Church.[12]
In Hungarian, the church is still commonly called "Eastern Greek" (Hungarian: Görögkeleti). This identification with Greek, however, became increasingly confusing with time. Missionaries brought Eastern Orthodoxy to many regions without ethnic Greeks, where the Greek language was not spoken. In addition, struggles between Rome and Constantinople to control parts of Southeastern Europe resulted in the conversion of some churches to the Catholic Church, which then also used "Greek Catholic" to indicate their continued use of the Byzantine rites. Today, only a minority of Eastern Orthodox adherents use Greek as the language of worship.[52]
"Eastern", then, indicates the geographical element in the church's origin and development, while "Orthodox" indicates the faith, as well as communion with the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople.[53] There are additional Christian churches in the east that are in communion with neither the Catholic Church nor the Eastern Orthodox Church, who tend to be distinguished by the category named "Oriental Orthodox". While the Eastern Orthodox Church continues officially to call itself "Catholic", for reasons of universality, the common title of "Eastern Orthodox Church" avoids casual confusion with the Catholic Church.