Divinity Atlas

Sacred Correspondences
Denominations

Eastern Orthodoxy

Also Known As Eastern Orthodox Adjectival short name of Eastern Orthodoxy, already carried as Eastern Orthodox Church.
Christianity

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Origin 30 to 1204 CE

A communion of self-governing, or autocephalous, churches, sharing one faith and sacramental life without a central earthly head. It holds the Nicene Creed, the seven Ecumenical Councils, and the Byzantine liturgy, and rejects the Roman claims to papal supremacy and the Filioque addition to the Creed, disputes over authority, doctrine, jurisdiction and politics that left it progressively estranged from Rome, conventionally dated from 1054 and hardened by the Fourth Crusade in 1204. Its spirituality centres on theosis, the deification or union of the person with God by grace, the mystery of the sacraments, the veneration of icons defended at the seventh council, and a rich monastic tradition exemplified by Mount Athos. Authority is conciliar, expressed through councils of bishops rather than a single pontiff. It shares apostolic succession and sacraments with Rome but differs in theology, discipline, and ethos, and regards itself as the continuation of the undivided early Church.

Facts
Identity
Also Known As
Eastern Orthodox Church 1
Origins
Origin Period
30 to 1204 CE 1
Origin Period
Distinct from Rome after the mutual excommunications of 1054 and the sack of Constantinople in 1204 1
Place of Origin
Constantinople and the eastern Mediterranean 1
Founder
Apostolic foundation is claimed for each of the ancient patriarchates 1
Founder
No single founder 1
Belief
Defining Doctrinal Position
Trinitarian: one God in three persons 1Tradition: Christianity
Defining Doctrinal Position
Chalcedonian: two natures in the one person of Christ (Chalcedon, 451) 1Tradition: Christianity
Defining Doctrinal Position
Rejects the Filioque: the Spirit proceeds from the Father 1Tradition: Christianity
Position on Marriage
Marriage is held to be monogamous, with remarriage after divorce sanctioned under specified conditions 3
Eastern Orthodoxy holds marriage a lifelong, monogamous sacrament and stands opposed to divorce as a matter of principle, but in its pastoral concern for the salvation of its people permits a divorced person to remarry in the Church, under the principle of oikonomia, up to a third union; a fourth is altogether forbidden, and a third is permitted only under a penitential rite. This differs from Roman Catholicism's own indissoluble position on the same underlying question.
Marriage Position Detail
The Orthodox Church in America's own teaching states the Church "in its concern for the salvation of its people" permits a divorced person to remarry a second and even a third time, "an act of oikonomia (economy or dispensation) and of philanthropia (loving kindness)." Subsequent marriages follow a different, penitential liturgical order than a first marriage. Orthodox practice traces this limit to the Tome of Union of the Council of Constantinople in 920, which forbids a fourth marriage outright and permits a third, with heavy penance, generally only to those under forty with no children from a preceding marriage. This is one jurisdiction's own statement, not a pan-Orthodox synodal declaration, but the underlying position is held broadly across Orthodox jurisdictions. 3
Position on SexualitySourced to the subject's own account
Same-sex sexual relationships are held contrary to teaching; LGBT individuals are welcomed as members but not ordained, and same-sex unions are not blessed 4
Sexuality Position Detail
Eastern Orthodoxy teaches marriage as a sacrament reserved to one man and one woman, and holds that same-sex sexual relationships fall outside the bounds of chaste conduct; the Church does not perform or bless same-sex unions and does not ordain a member living openly in a same-sex relationship. This is continuous doctrine with no single adoption date, expressed consistently across at least four decades of documented statements from separate Orthodox jurisdictions and publications, most recently the Orthodox Church in America Holy Synod's 2022 statement, which also affirms pastoral care and love for those who experience same-sex attraction. LGBT individuals are not excluded from membership or participation in the life of the Church on that basis alone. 4
Sourced to the subject's own accountCites one canonical jurisdiction's own statement (the Orthodox Church in America); no pan-Orthodox assembly document was independently confirmed, though no dissenting position from another major jurisdiction was found either.
Status
Status Today
Living tradition, practised today 1
Organisation
Governance
Episcopal: governed by bishops 1
Governance
Self-governing churches under patriarchs, deciding in synod 1
Self-governing (autocephalous) churches in communion, deciding in synod, with the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople as first in honour and not in jurisdiction.
Ordination
Restricted to men 1
Ordination
Celibacy required of the ordained 1
Bishops are chosen from among the celibate monastics
Ordination
Married clergy permitted 1
Married men may be ordained priest and deacon, though a priest may not marry after ordination
Ordination Practice Detail
The Orthodox Church in America's own teaching page states plainly that "the Orthodox Church precludes the ordination of women to the priesthood and episcopacy" as "a matter of Holy Tradition," and, honestly, that organized public controversy over the question is itself recent, "with roots outside the Orthodox Church," rather than the position itself carrying a datable point of adoption. This is one jurisdiction's own statement, not a pan-Orthodox synodal declaration, but the position it states is held broadly across Orthodox jurisdictions. 5
Relation to the State
Varies by Province 6
Eastern Orthodoxy is a communion of self-governing national and autocephalous churches; some, like the Church of Greece, hold a constitutionally privileged position in their own country while others operate under no such arrangement, so establishment status varies by autocephalous church and state.
Practice
Liturgical Language
Greek (liturgical) 1
Liturgical Language
Church Slavonic 1
Liturgical Language
The vernacular 1
Practice StatusSourced to the subject's own account
Eastern Orthodox doctrine and liturgy are published and studied openly, and Orthodox churches generally welcome visitors to attend services. As in Catholicism, reception of Communion is restricted to Orthodox Christians in good standing, an openly stated rule rather than a closed core. 7
Giving
Standing Giving Expectation
Eastern Orthodoxy asks its members to give as an expression of stewardship and thanksgiving, but no Orthodox jurisdiction has issued a decree fixing a tithe or any other percentage. The Orthodox Church in America's own guidance states plainly that it has never mandated a tithe, and that stewardship materials mentioning the traditional ten percent figure hold it up only as an ideal benchmark, teaching that the percentage itself matters less than giving one's first and best out of thanksgiving. Parishes are in practice supported through stewardship pledges, festival fundraisers and free-will offerings rather than a billed rate, so this is deliberately not recorded as an explicit absence like the Jehovah's Witnesses' entry: a real giving expectation exists, it simply carries no fixed rate. 9
How the Expectation Is Enforced
Customary Norm 9
Disputed
Adherents Today
220,000,000 to 260,000,000 12
Pew Research's widely cited 260 million figure is its total Orthodox Christian estimate, which the report itself states does not separate Eastern (Chalcedonian) Orthodox Christians from Oriental (non-Chalcedonian) Orthodox Christians. Estimates isolating Eastern Orthodoxy specifically commonly run closer to 220 million.
History
Separation or Divergence
Each holds that it kept the faith of the undivided church 1
Separation or Divergence
Neither communion accepts a description of itself as having separated 1
Separation or Divergence
Rome: the mutual excommunications of 1054 and the estrangement completed by the sack of Constantinople in 1204 1
Separation or Divergence
The excommunications were lifted by both sides in 1965 1 2
Date of Separation
1054 to 1204 1
Finances
Financial Disclosure Regime
Eastern Orthodoxy is a communion of autocephalous and autonomous national churches, each fully self-governing in its own internal affairs including its own finances. The Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople holds a position of honorary primacy, first among equals, rather than central executive or financial authority over the others. There is no consolidated financial statement, budget or wealth figure for Eastern Orthodoxy as a whole to disclose; a figure exists, if at all, only at the level of an individual autocephalous church. 8
Accountability
Documented Accused Count
10
Christ of the Hills Monastery, Blanco County, Texas, 1998 to 1999, a monastery affiliated with the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia (ROCOR) until 1999, not the whole of Eastern Orthodoxy. Two of the five are confirmed convicted; see the accused-count note on the Christ of the Hills Monastery Abuse Case.
Settlement Total
500,000 10
One 2006 civil settlement at Christ of the Hills Monastery, Blanco County, Texas, paid by ROCOR's insurer, Samuel Greene, and monk William Hughes; not a national or communion-wide total.
Response Policy Adopted
Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America Sexual Misconduct Policy (2000, revised 2022): zero tolerance standard, independent confidential hotline 11
The Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America specifically, one jurisdiction under the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, not a policy of Eastern Orthodoxy as a whole. Eastern Orthodoxy is a communion of self-governing churches with no single governing body able to adopt a communion-wide policy; this fact is scoped to the one jurisdiction that adopted it, the adopted-policy edge's Stance is marked associated rather than holds for the same reason.
Trajectory
Membership Over Time
By 2010, the same study found the worldwide Orthodox population had roughly doubled to nearly 260 million, 4 percent of world population and 12 percent of the world's Christians, even as Russia's Orthodox population alone surged past 100 million after the fall of the Soviet Union; Orthodoxy grew more slowly than Christianity as a whole over the century, which is why its share of world Christianity fell even as its raw numbers rose. 12
Membership Over Time
Pew Research Center's 2017 study of global Orthodox Christianity estimates the worldwide Orthodox population at about 124 million in 1910, 7 percent of the world's population at the time and 20 percent of the world's Christians. 12
Membership Figure As Of
1910-01-01 12
Membership Figure As Of
2010-01-01 12
Basis of the Membership Figure
Independent Survey 12
Basis of the Membership Figure
Scholarly or Demographic Estimate 12
Learn More
1054, and Why the Date Is Misleading

The Great Schism has a date, and the date is the least useful thing about it. In July 1054 a papal legation and the patriarch of Constantinople excommunicated one another. Both excommunications were personal rather than corporate, the pope who sent the legates was already dead, and ordinary Greeks and Latins went on communicating with each other for a long time afterwards. What 1054 marks is a convenient point on a curve, not a break.

The substance beneath it was accumulating for centuries. The filioque, the Latin insertion into the Nicene Creed of the words and the Son, describing the procession of the Holy Spirit, was objectionable to the East on two counts, one theological and one procedural. Theologically it seemed to displace the Father as the single source within the Godhead. Procedurally, and this is the argument Orthodox writers press hardest, the creed was the work of an ecumenical council and no single see had authority to alter it. Alongside that ran the growing Roman claim to jurisdiction rather than honour, disputes over married clergy, leavened or unleavened bread, and the political reality of an empire that no longer held both halves.

What actually made the division permanent came later. The Fourth Crusade sacked Constantinople in 1204, installed a Latin patriarch and looted the city for relics, and the memory of it outlasted every theological argument. Reunion councils at Lyons in 1274 and Florence in 1439 both produced signed agreements; both were repudiated by the Orthodox faithful and clergy once the delegates went home. The excommunications of 1054 were finally lifted in 1965. Communion was not restored.

A Communion Without a Centre

Orthodoxy has no pope, and the resulting structure is genuinely different in kind rather than merely in degree.

It consists of a set of autocephalous churches, self-headed, each electing its own primate and running its own affairs, with no external authority able to appoint its bishops or overrule its synod. There are roughly fourteen to sixteen of them depending on whose recognition you accept, which is itself part of the problem. Below autocephaly sits autonomy, a lesser independence granted by a mother church. Authority within each church rests with the synod of bishops, not with the primate alone.

The patriarch of Constantinople holds a primacy of honour, first among equals, a rank inherited from the see's position in the old imperial capital. What that primacy entitles him to do is precisely the point at issue in Orthodoxy today. Constantinople reads it as carrying real prerogatives, to hear appeals, to convene, and above all to grant autocephaly to new churches. Moscow reads it as a precedence at the table and nothing more, and notes that the Ecumenical Patriarchate itself is a small flock in Istanbul while the Russian church is by far the largest in the communion.

Councils are the intended remedy, and they are hard to hold. Orthodoxy recognises seven Ecumenical Councils, the last in 787. A pan-Orthodox council was prepared for most of a century and finally met in Crete in 2016; four churches, including Moscow, did not attend, and its status is disputed as a result.

The Rupture Over Ukraine

Orthodoxy is currently in a state of internal rupture, and it is a live event rather than a historical one.

In October 2018 the Moscow Patriarchate broke communion with Constantinople after the Ecumenical Patriarch announced his intention to recognise an independent Ukrainian church. On 5 January 2019 the tomos of autocephaly for the Orthodox Church of Ukraine was signed. Moscow regards the act as an invasion of its canonical territory and the new body as uncanonical; Constantinople regards the granting of autocephaly as its own prerogative and holds that Ukraine was never permanently transferred to Moscow in the first place.

The communion has not divided cleanly. The churches of Greece, Alexandria and Cyprus recognised the new Ukrainian church across 2019 and 2020, and Moscow broke communion with the recognising hierarchs in turn. Most other autocephalous churches have declined to take a public position, which leaves large parts of Orthodoxy in the awkward position of being in communion with two bodies that are not in communion with each other. The Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022 hardened everything: the Moscow patriarch's public support for the war drove even the Ukrainian church that had remained under Moscow to declare its independence, and prompted sanctions and legal restrictions on Moscow-linked structures.

Worldwide Eastern Orthodox numbers are usually estimated around 220 million, the second-largest Christian body after the Catholic Church. The great majority of those are in Russia, Ukraine, the Balkans, Georgia and Romania, which is why a quarrel over Ukraine is not a regional matter but a fight over the demographic centre of the communion.

Constantinople, 1923, and a Reform Half the Communion Never Took

In May 1923 the Ecumenical Patriarch Meletius IV, born Emmanouil Metaxakis, convened a Pan Orthodox Congress in Constantinople with calendar reform high on its agenda. By the twentieth century the Julian calendar the church still kept had drifted thirteen days behind the seasons it was built to track. The congress was never attended by Alexandria, Antioch, Jerusalem or most other local churches, so nothing it resolved could bind the whole communion, only recommend to it.

The technical work fell to Milutin Milankovic, the Serbian geophysicist and astronomer serving as an astronomical delegate for the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes. When the congress rejected the Serbian delegation's first proposal, Milankovic drafted a second, and the leap year rule he produced, one that keeps the calendar aligned with the Gregorian reckoning for eight hundred and seventy seven years, until the year 2800, is what the congress adopted that October under the name the Revised Julian calendar.

What followed was not one reform but a slow, uneven sorting that is still visible today. Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, Greece, Cyprus, Romania, Poland, Albania and Bulgaria took up the Revised Julian calendar for fixed feast days over the following decades, keeping the older Julian reckoning for Easter. Jerusalem, Russia, Serbia and Georgia declined it outright. The boundary that resulted runs through the same body this atlas already describes as a communion without a single centre, and it tracks neither doctrine nor jurisdiction, only which calendar a given church's own faithful wake up to each December.

Denominations of Eastern Orthodoxy
Cross-Tradition Connections

Adopted Policy

Associated With

The image associated with his legend entered Constantinople in 944, and the translation is still commemorated in the Byzantine calendar on 16 August.

Source The Image of EdessaMark Guscin

Orthodox churches around the sea trace their foundation to the apostle Andrew, and bishoprics stood at the Greek ports from an early date.

Source The Orthodox ChurchTimothy Ware (Kallistos Ware)

Orthodoxy's liturgy, its theology of the icon and its structure of autocephalous churches were all formed inside this empire.

Russia fought as the self-declared protector of Orthodoxy, and the Greek clergy's rights in the shared churches were the matter in dispute.

Source Crimea: The Last CrusadeOrlando Figes

This source names Eastern Orthodoxy directly: "Wikipedia's article on Eastern Orthodoxy in Serbia, read directly for this pass, which states that the Ecumenical Patriarch persuaded the Ottoman Sultan to abolish the Patriarchate of Pec on 11..."

At Theophany on 6 January Orthodox clergy bless water and in many places throw a cross into a river or harbour, re-enacting the baptism.

Kalderash, Cultures
Source Romani Pentecostalism: Gypsies and Charismatic ChristianityDavid Thurfjell and Adrian Marsh, editors (includes Regis Laurent, "On the Genesis of Gypsy Pentecostalism in Brittany")
Madaba, Cities

Chief among its mosaics is the sixth-century Madaba Map set into the floor of the Greek Orthodox Church of Saint George.

Source The Catholic EncyclopediaCharles George Herbermann et al. (eds.)
Source The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd revised editionF. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.)

This source names Eastern Orthodoxy directly: "form across Christianity broadly, and Eastern Orthodoxy holds a related but doctrinally distinct feast of the Dormition, a difference worth keeping in view whenever this bull is cited."

Source Munificentissimus DeusPope Pius XIIthe holders' own account
Nicaea, Cities

The council of 787 restored the veneration of icons and is kept in the Orthodox calendar.

Source Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils, 2 volumesNorman P. Tanner (ed.)

Mehmed II installed a Greek Orthodox patriarch in Constantinople within months of the conquest and confirmed his authority over the Orthodox population.

Eastern Orthodoxy recognises saints by glorification, a synodal act of the local church, with no central tribunal.

Source The Orthodox ChurchTimothy Ware (Kallistos Ware)

The seminary of the ecumenical patriarchate stands on Heybeliada in this sea and has admitted no students since the Turkish law of 1971.

Source The Orthodox ChurchTimothy Ware (Kallistos Ware)

This source names Eastern Orthodoxy directly: "including Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, Eastern Orthodoxy, Roman Catholicism, Islam, Protestantism and World Christianity."

This source names Eastern Orthodoxy directly: "and authoritative source for what Eastern Orthodoxy itself commemorates on this feast and how the service names and orders the angelic ranks."

Source The Menaion for 8 November: the Synaxis of the Bodiless PowersEastern Orthodox Churchthe holders' own account

Belongs to Tradition

Branch Of

Contains

The first see of the Eastern Orthodox communion; its bishop is first among equals.

Source The Orthodox ChurchTimothy Ware (Kallistos Ware)

Contrasts With

The Orthodox churches admit no instrument at all into the liturgy, a settled difference from Lutheran and Catholic practice.

Source The Cambridge Companion to the OrganNicholas Thistlethwaite and Geoffrey Webber (eds.)

Rejected Here

Papal primacy and infallibility, Doctrines

This tradition rejects the Roman claim to universal jurisdiction and papal infallibility.

Source The Orthodox ChurchTimothy Ware (Kallistos Ware)
The Filioque, Doctrines

The Filioque addition to the Nicene Creed is rejected by this tradition as an unauthorized Western interpolation, a central cause of the East-West schism.

Source The Orthodox ChurchTimothy Ware (Kallistos Ware)

Byzantine worship is sung unaccompanied. The human voice is held to be the only instrument proper to the liturgy, and no organ stands in an Orthodox church.

Source The Orthodox ChurchTimothy Ware (Kallistos Ware)
Papacy, Religious Organization & Structure

Orthodoxy accords the bishop of Rome a primacy of honour among equal patriarchs and refuses the universal jurisdiction and the infallibility defined in 1870.

Orthodoxy holds that no bishop is infallible apart from the Church, and treats the definition as the point at which the Roman claim became formally irreconcilable with the Eastern understanding of the episcopate.

Source The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd revised editionF. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.)
Pope, Religious Roles & Titles

Orthodoxy accords the bishop of Rome a primacy of honour among equals and refuses the universal jurisdiction and the infallibility that the Roman office now claims.

Source The Orthodox ChurchTimothy Ware (Kallistos Ware)

The Florentine union was formally repudiated in the East, and Orthodoxy holds that a union signed by a delegation under the threat of the Turk and rejected by the churches at home was never a union at all.

Source The Orthodox ChurchTimothy Ware (Kallistos Ware)
The Council of Trent, Councils and Synods

Orthodoxy receives no Western council after the seventh, and holds Trent to be the local business of the Latin church, whatever weight the Latin church gives it.

Source The Orthodox ChurchTimothy Ware (Kallistos Ware)

Orthodoxy refuses both definitions, holding that the bishop of Rome is first among equals and that no bishop is preserved from error apart from the consent of the church.

Source The Orthodox ChurchTimothy Ware (Kallistos Ware)

The union proclaimed at Lyons was made by an emperor under military pressure and was repudiated in the East, where it was never received by the bishops, the monasteries or the people.

Source The Orthodox ChurchTimothy Ware (Kallistos Ware)

Orthodoxy refuses the addition this council put into the creed, holding that no local synod may alter the text a general council issued, and the addition itself to be false.

Source The Orthodox ChurchTimothy Ware (Kallistos Ware)
Unam Sanctam, Religious Legal Instruments

Orthodoxy has never accepted that communion with the see of Rome is the condition of salvation, and reads the bull as the medieval papacy's claim at its furthest reach.

Source The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd revised editionF. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.)
Papal primacy and infallibility, Doctrines

A primacy of honour and not of jurisdiction. The bishop of Rome is first among equals; he is not a bishop over bishops and holds no charism of infallibility.

Critiqued

Pope, Religious Roles & Titles

Eastern Orthodoxy has historically honored the Bishop of Rome as first in honor among the ancient patriarchates but rejects the Roman claim to universal jurisdiction over every diocese.

Source The Orthodox ChurchTimothy Ware (Kallistos Ware)

Held Differently

Purgatory, Doctrines

This tradition does not accept the Western doctrine of Purgatory as pressed at the Council of Florence, though it holds its own view of an intermediate state.

Source The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd revised editionF. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.)
Alleluia, Mantras

Not silenced for the fast but sung more: it replaces God Is the Lord at the Lenten Orthros, so the Latin rule runs here in the opposite direction.

Ave Maria, Mantras

The Byzantine greeting of the Mother of God, Theotoke Parthene, carries the same scriptural salutation, ends by naming Christ the saviour of souls rather than by asking her prayers, and is sung at Great Compline rather than counted on beads.

Charity, Virtues

Orthodoxy speaks of love as the end of the ascetic life and the mark of the acquisition of the Holy Spirit, outside the Latin ordering of theological and cardinal virtues altogether.

Source The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd revised editionF. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.)
Chasuble, Religious Dress & Vestments

The outer eucharistic vestment of a Byzantine priest is the phelonion, a full cone cut away at the front and hanging long behind, not the shaped Latin chasuble.

Source The Byzantine Rite: A Short HistoryRobert F. Taft
Codex Vaticanus, Textual Witnesses

The received New Testament of the Orthodox churches is the Byzantine text, printed as the Patriarchal Text of 1904, so this codex is honoured as an ancient witness without being the text the Church reads.

Source The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd revised editionF. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.)
Confessions, Other Writings

The East honours Augustine as a saint while declining the authority the West gives his account of the fall and of inherited guilt, so he is read as one father among many rather than as the father of the tradition.

Source The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd revised editionF. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.)
Crucifix, Sacred Objects & Ritual Items

The Orthodox cross carries a painted or low relief figure rather than a carved one. Sculpture in the round is avoided in the churches of the Byzantine rite, which is why the crucifix looks different rather than being absent.

Source The Orthodox ChurchTimothy Ware (Kallistos Ware)
Faith, Virtues

Orthodoxy does not order the Christian life by the Latin scheme of three theological and four cardinal virtues; faith is spoken of within an ascetic tradition of participation in the divine life rather than as an infused habit of the soul.

Source The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd revised editionF. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.)

The Great Doxology closes Orthros rather than opening the Liturgy, runs longer than the Latin Gloria, and ends by leading into the Trisagion.

Humanae Vitae, Religious Legal Instruments

Orthodox practice leaves the question to the couple and their confessor rather than settling it by a universal rule, so it neither receives the encyclical nor issues a ruling against it.

Source The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd revised editionF. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.)
Latin Cross, Religious Symbols

The Byzantine cross carries an upper bar for the title and a slanted bar at the foot, and the sign is made from the right shoulder to the left. The form differs and the thing signified does not.

Source The Orthodox ChurchTimothy Ware (Kallistos Ware)

Orthodoxy holds a binding teaching authority but locates it in the ecumenical councils and in the reception of their teaching by the whole church, not in a standing office attached to one see.

Mitre, Religious Dress & Vestments

The Byzantine mitre is a closed crown modelled on imperial court dress rather than the two peaked western form, and in Greek practice it is worn by priests holding certain honours as well as by bishops.

Source The Byzantine Rite: A Short HistoryRobert F. Taft
Pride (Superbia), Vices

The Eastern ascetic tradition counts eight thoughts rather than seven capital sins, and it separates pride from vainglory, which the Western list folded together, so the diagnosis of the passions runs on a different frame.

Source The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd revised editionF. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.)
Sloth (Acedia), Vices

Acedia in the Eastern tradition is despondency, the noonday demon of the desert fathers, an affliction that empties the soul of its labour, rather than the laziness the Western list came to name.

Source The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd revised editionF. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.)
Stole, Religious Dress & Vestments

The Byzantine stole is the epitrachelion, a single band joined down its whole length rather than the two hanging strips of the Latin stole, and no priest may serve any service without it.

Source The Byzantine Rite: A Short HistoryRobert F. Taft
Atonement, Doctrines

Atonement for sin through Christ is affirmed across Nicene Christianity, including this tradition.

Source The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd revised editionF. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.)
Grace, Doctrines

Grace as God's unearned favor and enabling power is affirmed across Nicene Christianity, including this tradition.

Source Encyclopedia of ReligionMircea Eliade (ed.); Lindsay Jones (ed., 2nd ed.)
The Real Presence in the Eucharist, Doctrines

The Real Presence in the Eucharist is affirmed as sacramental mystery in this tradition, without the scholastic vocabulary of transubstantiation.

Atonement, Doctrines

Theosis as the frame. The cross is read as the means by which human nature is healed and made a partaker of the divine life, rather than as a transaction settling a debt.

Purgatory, Doctrines

No purgatory as the West defines it. The Orthodox churches pray for the dead and decline the juridical account of satisfaction that the Latin doctrine rests on, so this is a refusal of the framing rather than of prayer for the departed.

The Real Presence in the Eucharist, Doctrines

The change as mystery. The Orthodox churches affirm the change and decline to define its mechanism in the categories the Latin definition uses.

Disciplines That Use This

Hesychasm, Disciplines

The tradition it belongs to and is defined within.

Source The Orthodox ChurchTimothy Ware (Kallistos Ware)

Holds Element

The head of an Orthodox monastery is ordinarily titled hegumen or archimandrite, holding the office an abbot holds in the west.

Source The Orthodox ChurchTimothy Ware (Kallistos Ware)

Sung in full on the Saturday of the Akathist in the fifth week of Great Lent, the congregation standing throughout, which is what the name says.

The altar stands behind the icon screen and holds the gospel book, the tabernacle and the antimension without which no liturgy may be served.

Source The Byzantine Rite: A Short HistoryRobert F. Taft
Amen, Mantras

Answered by the people or by the choir at the close of each prayer.

Orthodox worship addresses the bodiless powers directly, with a weekly commemoration on Mondays and a synaxis of its own in November.

Source The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd revised editionF. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.)

The remainder of the offered bread is distributed at the end of the liturgy to everyone present, including those who did not communicate.

Source The Byzantine Rite: A Short HistoryRobert F. Taft

A senior monastic priest, originally the head of a monastery, and in ordinary Orthodox use a title of honour for a celibate priest.

Source The Orthodox ChurchTimothy Ware (Kallistos Ware)

Sung after the consecration in the Divine Liturgy.

The bishop is the centre of the local church, and Orthodox order requires him to be celibate, which in practice means chosen from the monasteries.

Source The Orthodox ChurchTimothy Ware (Kallistos Ware)

Monophonic and unaccompanied, sung by a cantor over a held ison.

The eight tones turn week by week through the year and decide which melodies a given Sunday is sung to.

The inner cassock is worn under the outer riassa by clergy and monastics, and is the ordinary dress of a Byzantine priest outside the services.

Source The Byzantine Rite: A Short HistoryRobert F. Taft

The chalice of the Byzantine liturgy, from which the faithful receive the body and blood together by spoon.

Source The Byzantine Rite: A Short HistoryRobert F. Taft

Sung slowly while the gifts are carried in at the Great Entrance.

Orthodox orders are conferred by a bishop and reserve the same acts, with a married parish priesthood alongside a celibate episcopate drawn from the monasteries.

Codex Sinaiticus, Textual Witnesses

The codex was found at the Monastery of Saint Catherine on Sinai, which is Orthodox and which maintains that the leaves removed in the nineteenth century were not a gift; the monastery still holds part of it.

Source The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd revised editionF. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.)

The cross is blessed, carried and venerated, and the faithful sign themselves with three fingers joined to confess the Trinity.

Source The Orthodox ChurchTimothy Ware (Kallistos Ware)

Held as the third order, and the deacon has a large and audible part in the Orthodox liturgy.

Source The Orthodox ChurchTimothy Ware (Kallistos Ware)
Deaconess, Religious Roles & Titles

The ancient order is remembered in the Orthodox churches and its restoration has been repeatedly discussed and in places begun, without a settled common practice.

Source The Orthodox ChurchTimothy Ware (Kallistos Ware)

Orthodox baptism opens with exorcisms and a renunciation, and the tradition's ascetic literature is largely an account of the passions as demonic assault.

Source The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd revised editionF. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.)

The sayings of the desert elders are foundational to Orthodox ascetic teaching and are read alongside the Philokalia.

Source The Orthodox ChurchTimothy Ware (Kallistos Ware)

The Orthodox eparchy is the same institution under its Greek name, its bishop elected and tried by the synod of his own church.

The Byzantine stole, joined down its length rather than hanging in two bands, without which a priest may not celebrate any sacred rite.

Source The Byzantine Rite: A Short HistoryRobert F. Taft

The priest's service book, containing the parts of the liturgy and of the sacraments that belong to him.

Source The Byzantine Rite: A Short HistoryRobert F. Taft

A bishop or cleric exercising delegated authority from a patriarch, often over a community outside the patriarchate own territory.

Source The Orthodox ChurchTimothy Ware (Kallistos Ware)
Frankincense, Incense

Censing is continuous in the Byzantine rite, at vespers, at matins and repeatedly through the liturgy, and the deacon's censer carries bells so that it is heard as well as seen.

Source The Byzantine Rite: A Short HistoryRobert F. Taft
Gabriel, Archangels

Gabriel stands beside Michael in the Synaxis of the Bodiless Powers and is a constant figure in Orthodox iconography, where he carries the herald's staff of the Annunciation.

Source The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd revised editionF. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.)
Gluttony (Gula), Vices

Gluttony stands first among the eight thoughts of the Eastern ascetic tradition, treated as the passion the monastic fast is set against.

Source The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd revised editionF. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.)

The gospel book rests on the altar, is carried in the little entrance and is venerated by the people, and its cover is treated as an icon.

Source The Byzantine Rite: A Short HistoryRobert F. Taft

Avarice is among the eight thoughts of the Eastern ascetic tradition.

Source The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd revised editionF. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.)
Hesychasm, Disciplines

The tradition it belongs to and is defined within.

Source The Orthodox ChurchTimothy Ware (Kallistos Ware)

A monk ordained to the priesthood, so that a monastery can have the sacraments celebrated by one of its own.

Source The Orthodox ChurchTimothy Ware (Kallistos Ware)

The veneration of icons is dogma in Orthodoxy, settled at the seventh ecumenical council and commemorated every year as the Triumph of Orthodoxy.

Source The Orthodox ChurchTimothy Ware (Kallistos Ware)

The image received at Constantinople in 944 is commemorated in the Orthodox calendar on the sixteenth of August, and the feast survives the object.

Jesus Prayer, Mantras

The prayer of hesychasm, said with the breath and counted on a knotted wool cord.

Source The Orthodox ChurchTimothy Ware (Kallistos Ware)

The knotted prayer rope used for the Jesus Prayer, given at monastic tonsure and carried by laity as well.

Kyrie Eleison, Mantras

The answer to every petition of the litanies, and so the most repeated line in the services.

Lust (Luxuria), Vices

Lust is among the eight thoughts of the Eastern ascetic tradition.

Source The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd revised editionF. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.)

Sung at Orthros with More Honourable Than the Cherubim answering between its verses.

The twelve volumes of the fixed calendar, one to a month, carrying the propers of every commemorated day.

Source The Byzantine Rite: A Short HistoryRobert F. Taft

A metropolitan in the Orthodox churches is a senior bishop ranking above ordinary bishops and below a patriarch, and in some churches the title is the ordinary one for a diocesan bishop.

Source The Orthodox ChurchTimothy Ware (Kallistos Ware)
Michael, Archangels

The Synaxis of the Archangel Michael and the Other Bodiless Powers on 8 November heads the Orthodox commemoration of the angels, and Michael is addressed as the taxiarch, the commander of the heavenly host.

Source The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd revised editionF. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.)

Orthodox monasticism is the source from which bishops are drawn, and its great houses are governed by their own abbots rather than by a central order.

Orthodox monasticism is not divided into orders. A monk belongs to his monastery, and the Athonite houses are the pattern.

Source The Orthodox ChurchTimothy Ware (Kallistos Ware)
Myrrh, Incense

Myrrh is blended into the resin used in Orthodox censing and gives the characteristic scent of a Greek or Russian church.

Held, and Orthodox convents follow the same undivided pattern as the men houses.

Source The Orthodox ChurchTimothy Ware (Kallistos Ware)

The band worn about a bishop's shoulders. It is the Byzantine counterpart of the western pallium, but it belongs to every bishop by his order rather than being conferred by another see.

Source The Byzantine Rite: A Short HistoryRobert F. Taft

Sung first at midnight at Pascha and then through the forty days after it, at the opening of almost every service.

The collection is the working text of the hesychast tradition, gathering the fathers on watchfulness and the prayer of the heart into one body.

Source The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd revised editionF. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.)

Sung at Vespers as the lamps are lit, and already old enough in the fourth century that Basil could not name its author.

Held as the second order, and a man already married may be ordained, which is one of the plainest differences between the Orthodox and Latin priesthoods.

Source The Orthodox ChurchTimothy Ware (Kallistos Ware)

Leavened bread stamped with the seal, from which the lamb is cut for the eucharist and particles are removed for the living and the dead.

Source The Byzantine Rite: A Short HistoryRobert F. Taft

Numbered 22 in the Greek psalter the Orthodox churches read from.

Raphael, Archangels

Raphael is counted among the archangels of the 8 November synaxis and Tobit stands within the Orthodox canon.

Source The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd revised editionF. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.)

The monastic habit is given in two degrees, the lesser and the great schema, and the great schema is the higher rank rather than a different order.

Source The Orthodox ChurchTimothy Ware (Kallistos Ware)

Relics are sewn into the antimension on which the liturgy is celebrated, so the eucharist is offered on the witness of the martyrs by rule and not by custom.

Source The Orthodox ChurchTimothy Ware (Kallistos Ware)

Benedict is a saint of the Orthodox calendar and his Rule is known in the East, while Eastern monasteries are governed by the typikon of their own house rather than by a single rule.

Source The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd revised editionF. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.)

Orthodoxy glorifies saints by the act of a synod rather than by a judicial process, and the icon and the feast follow.

Source The Orthodox ChurchTimothy Ware (Kallistos Ware)

The bishop's outer vestment in the Byzantine rite, derived from the imperial tunic and worn in place of the phelonion.

Source The Byzantine Rite: A Short HistoryRobert F. Taft

The struck wooden plank calls the community to prayer on Athos and in many monasteries, older in Byzantine use than the bell and still preferred in Lent.

Source The Byzantine Rite: A Short HistoryRobert F. Taft

The elder is a recognised figure across the Orthodox world, particularly in the monasteries of Athos.

Source The Orthodox ChurchTimothy Ware (Kallistos Ware)

The holy synod of an Orthodox church elects its bishops, tries them and settles doctrine for that church, and is the highest authority in it.

Eastern Orthodoxy receives Chalcedon as the fourth ecumenical council and its definition of two natures in one person as the measure of orthodox Christology.

Source The Definition of Faith of the Council of ChalcedonCouncil of Chalcedonthe holders' own account

The third of the seven councils, and the Theotokos it defends is the hinge of Orthodox devotion as well as of Orthodox Christology.

Source Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils, 2 volumesNorman P. Tanner (ed.)

The second of the seven councils, and the source of the creed as the Orthodox Church confesses it, without the later Western addition.

Source The Nicene-Constantinopolitan CreedFirst Council of Constantinoplethe holders' own account

The first of the seven councils the Orthodox Church receives, and the one whose creed, in its Constantinopolitan form, is sung at every liturgy.

Source The Canons of the First Council of NicaeaFirst Council of Nicaeathe holders' own account

Received as the disciplinary completion of the fifth and sixth councils, and its canons are the working law of the Orthodox churches on marriage of the clergy, on fasting and on the images.

Source The Council in Trullo RevisitedGeorge Nedungatt and Michael Featherstone (eds.)

The fifth of the seven councils, and the one that answers the charge that Chalcedon had conceded too much to a Nestorian reading.

Source Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils, 2 volumesNorman P. Tanner (ed.)

The seventh and last of the councils Orthodoxy receives, and the one that vindicates the icon, which is why its restoration is kept every year as the Triumph of Orthodoxy.

Source Decrees of the Second Council of NicaeaSecond Council of Nicaeathe holders' own account

The sixth of the seven councils, completing the Chalcedonian account of Christ by confessing a human will alongside the divine.

Source Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils, 2 volumesNorman P. Tanner (ed.)

Censing is continuous in the Byzantine rite, at vespers, at matins and repeatedly through the divine liturgy.

Source The Byzantine Rite: A Short HistoryRobert F. Taft
Trisagion, Mantras

Sung three times at the entrance and addressed to the Trinity, which is the reading these churches defended against the addition made further east.

Sung after the entrance at the Divine Liturgy and addressed to the Trinity.

The book that governs how the fixed and moveable cycles are combined on any given day, and without which the services cannot be assembled at all.

Source The Byzantine Rite: A Short HistoryRobert F. Taft
Uriel, Archangels

Uriel stands among the archangels commemorated in the Synaxis of the Bodiless Powers on 8 November, which is where the Orthodox reckoning of the archangels parts from the three the Roman calendar names.

Source The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd revised editionF. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.)
Wrath (Ira), Vices

Anger is among the eight thoughts of the Eastern ascetic tradition.

Source The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd revised editionF. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.)

Critiqued Here

Summa Theologiae, Other Writings

Orthodox theology has generally treated the scholastic method as a departure, and the fourteenth century settlement on the divine essence and energies stands as the Eastern answer to the questions Western scholasticism was putting.

Source The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd revised editionF. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.)

Objects and Practices of This Tradition

Included in the wider Eastern Orthodox Old Testament canon beyond the Trent-era Roman Catholic deuterocanon, affirmed at the Synod of Jerusalem, 1672.

Source The Confession of Dositheus (Synod of Jerusalem, 1672)Synod of Jerusalemthe holders' own account

Included in the wider Eastern Orthodox Old Testament canon beyond the Trent-era Roman Catholic deuterocanon, affirmed at the Synod of Jerusalem, 1672.

Source The Confession of Dositheus (Synod of Jerusalem, 1672)Synod of Jerusalemthe holders' own account

Held as canonical scripture in the Eastern Orthodox Old Testament, affirmed at the Synod of Jerusalem, 1672, as part of the Greek additions to Daniel.

Source The Confession of Dositheus (Synod of Jerusalem, 1672)Synod of Jerusalemthe holders' own account

Held as canonical scripture in the Eastern Orthodox Old Testament, affirmed at the Synod of Jerusalem, 1672, as part of the Greek additions to Esther.

Source The Confession of Dositheus (Synod of Jerusalem, 1672)Synod of Jerusalemthe holders' own account

Almsgiving is bound closely to the fasting seasons, what is not spent on food being given away.

Holy Unction is one of the seven mysteries and is administered to the living faithful in general, most publicly on Holy Wednesday, and not to the dying alone.

Source Service Book of the Holy Orthodox-Catholic Apostolic ChurchIsabel Florence Hapgood (compiler and translator)
Apocalypse, Doctrines

Apocalyptic and eschatological revelation is received as canonical and doctrinally significant across Nicene Christianity, including this tradition.

Source Encyclopedia of ReligionMircea Eliade (ed.); Lindsay Jones (ed., 2nd ed.)

Apostolic succession, an unbroken line of ordination from the apostles, is claimed and taught as doctrine by this tradition.

Source The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd revised editionF. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.)

Clergy or specialist role within Eastern Orthodoxy.

Source The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd revised editionF. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.)

An archbishop in Eastern Orthodoxy typically governs an autonomous or historically prominent see, a rank between bishop and metropolitan or patriarch depending on the local church.

Source The Orthodox ChurchTimothy Ware (Kallistos Ware)

Clergy or specialist role within Eastern Orthodoxy.

Source The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd revised editionF. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.)
Source The Orthodox ChurchTimothy Ware (Kallistos Ware)
Baptism, Rituals

Baptism is by threefold immersion, and is followed immediately by chrismation and communion in the same service.

Source Service Book of the Holy Orthodox-Catholic Apostolic ChurchIsabel Florence Hapgood (compiler and translator)

Baptism, chrismation and first communion are given together in one rite, so the baptismal life begins in infancy and is not deferred to an age of discretion.

Source The Orthodox ChurchTimothy Ware (Kallistos Ware)

A father of the Greek church, kept in the Byzantine calendar and in the Roman one alike.

Source The Orthodox ChurchTimothy Ware (Kallistos Ware)

The Benedictus belongs to the ninth ode of the canon at Matins.

Source Service Book of the Holy Orthodox-Catholic Apostolic ChurchIsabel Florence Hapgood (compiler and translator)

Clergy or specialist role within Eastern Orthodoxy.

Source The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd revised editionF. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.)

A bishop governs a diocese and, through unbroken episcopal succession, ordains clergy and consecrates the chrism used across it.

Source The Orthodox ChurchTimothy Ware (Kallistos Ware)

Held as canonical scripture in the Eastern Orthodox Old Testament, affirmed at the Synod of Jerusalem, 1672.

Source The Confession of Dositheus (Synod of Jerusalem, 1672)Synod of Jerusalemthe holders' own account

Held as canonical scripture in the Eastern Orthodox Old Testament, affirmed at the Synod of Jerusalem, 1672.

Source The Confession of Dositheus (Synod of Jerusalem, 1672)Synod of Jerusalemthe holders' own account

Held as canonical scripture in the Eastern Orthodox Old Testament, affirmed at the Synod of Jerusalem, 1672.

Source The Confession of Dositheus (Synod of Jerusalem, 1672)Synod of Jerusalemthe holders' own account

Held as canonical scripture in the Eastern Orthodox Old Testament, affirmed at the Synod of Jerusalem, 1672, covering both First and Second Maccabees.

Source The Confession of Dositheus (Synod of Jerusalem, 1672)Synod of Jerusalemthe holders' own account
Breathwork, Practices

Orthodox Christian prayer coordinates a formula with the breathing.

Source Encyclopedia of ReligionMircea Eliade (ed.); Lindsay Jones (ed., 2nd ed.)
Source The Orthodox ChurchTimothy Ware (Kallistos Ware)

The patriarch's crowning of the emperor, normally in Hagia Sophia, became the settled Eastern Orthodox form.

Orthodox light tapers before a shrine or an icon and leave them.

Source Encyclopedia of ReligionMircea Eliade (ed.); Lindsay Jones (ed., 2nd ed.)

Kept as the Meeting of the Lord, forty days after the Nativity, one of the Twelve Great Feasts.

Source The Orthodox ChurchTimothy Ware (Kallistos Ware)

Orthodoxy ordains married men to the priesthood but requires that bishops be monks, so celibacy shapes the episcopate rather than the parish; Mount Athos remains the tradition's monastic centre.

Source Encyclopedia of ReligionMircea Eliade (ed.); Lindsay Jones (ed., 2nd ed.)

Christian eschatology, the doctrine of last things, is affirmed across Nicene Christianity, including this tradition, though particulars vary.

Source The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd revised editionF. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.)

The Nativity in the flesh of our Lord, kept on December 25 by the churches on the revised calendar and on January 7 by those keeping the old Julian reckoning.

Source The Orthodox ChurchTimothy Ware (Kallistos Ware)

The Christus Victor theory of the atonement resonates with this tradition's patristic emphasis on Christ's triumph over death.

The churching of a mother and the presentation of a child on the fortieth day is kept as a living rite here, not as a survival.

Source Service Book of the Holy Orthodox-Catholic Apostolic ChurchIsabel Florence Hapgood (compiler and translator)
Source The Orthodox ChurchTimothy Ware (Kallistos Ware)
Compline, Practices
Confession, Practices

The Orthodox confess standing beside the priest before an icon rather than through a grille, the priest understood as a witness rather than a judge, and confession is ordinarily expected before receiving communion.

Source The Holy BibleAnonymous (multiple authors)
Confirmation, Rituals

Chrismation is given with baptism, in infancy, by a presbyter using chrism consecrated by a bishop. The rite completes initiation here rather than following it years later.

Source Service Book of the Holy Orthodox-Catholic Apostolic ChurchIsabel Florence Hapgood (compiler and translator)

Orthodox dedication of a church involves anointing the altar with chrism and depositing relics beneath it.

Source Encyclopedia of ReligionMircea Eliade (ed.); Lindsay Jones (ed., 2nd ed.)
Covenant, Doctrines

The biblical covenant tradition, old and new, is affirmed across Nicene Christianity, including this tradition.

Source The Holy BibleAnonymous (multiple authors)

Creation ex nihilo is affirmed across Nicene Christianity, including this tradition.

Source The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd revised editionF. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.)

Clergy or specialist role within Eastern Orthodoxy.

Source The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd revised editionF. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.)

Deacons assist the bishop and priest in the liturgy and in charitable service, without themselves celebrating the sacraments.

Source The Orthodox ChurchTimothy Ware (Kallistos Ware)
Source The Orthodox ChurchTimothy Ware (Kallistos Ware)

Senior leadership office of Eastern Orthodoxy.

Source The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd revised editionF. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.)
Source Encyclopedia of ReligionMircea Eliade (ed.); Lindsay Jones (ed., 2nd ed.)
Source The Orthodox ChurchTimothy Ware (Kallistos Ware)
Source The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd revised editionF. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.)
Exorcism, Practices

Prayers of exorcism are read over every candidate as a fixed part of the baptismal service, before the renunciation and the anointing.

Source Service Book of the Holy Orthodox-Catholic Apostolic ChurchIsabel Florence Hapgood (compiler and translator)
Fasting, Practices

Orthodox fasting means abstinence rather than hunger: no meat, dairy, eggs, fish with backbones, wine or oil on the strictest days, kept through Great Lent and three further fasting seasons and on most Wednesdays and Fridays, which is roughly half the year.

Source The Qur'an
Source Encyclopedia of ReligionMircea Eliade (ed.); Lindsay Jones (ed., 2nd ed.)

The washing of feet is performed on Holy Thursday by a bishop, the Niptir, in the cathedral and in the great monasteries.

Source Service Book of the Holy Orthodox-Catholic Apostolic ChurchIsabel Florence Hapgood (compiler and translator)
Source The Orthodox ChurchTimothy Ware (Kallistos Ware)
Funeral Rites, Rituals

The funeral service, the Panikhida and the memorial services on the third, ninth and fortieth days form one continuous set of offices for the dead.

Source Service Book of the Holy Orthodox-Catholic Apostolic ChurchIsabel Florence Hapgood (compiler and translator)
Gloria Patri, Prayers

The doxology closes the psalms and the kathismata throughout the daily cycle, in the form without the Filioque.

Source Service Book of the Holy Orthodox-Catholic Apostolic ChurchIsabel Florence Hapgood (compiler and translator)

Kept as Great and Holy Friday, with the Royal Hours, the taking down from the cross and the burial of the epitaphios.

Source The Orthodox ChurchTimothy Ware (Kallistos Ware)
Source The Orthodox ChurchTimothy Ware (Kallistos Ware)
Heresy, Doctrines

The concept of heresy as a formally rejected teaching is operative in this tradition's own doctrinal and disciplinary system.

Source The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd revised editionF. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.)

The Jesus Prayer belongs to Orthodoxy, defended by Gregory Palamas against the charge that its practitioners claimed to see God's essence; monks and increasingly laypeople repeat it alone on a knotted woollen cord, and teachers warn against the breathing technique without direction.

Source Encyclopedia of ReligionMircea Eliade (ed.); Lindsay Jones (ed., 2nd ed.)
Source The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd revised editionF. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.)

Clergy or specialist role within Eastern Orthodoxy.

Source The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd revised editionF. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.)
Holy Orders, Rituals

A married man may be ordained deacon or presbyter, though not bishop, and a man may not marry after ordination. This is the settled difference from Latin practice.

Source The Orthodox ChurchTimothy Ware (Kallistos Ware)
Holy Spirit, Doctrines

The Holy Spirit as the third person of the Trinity is affirmed across Nicene Christianity, including this tradition.

Source The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd revised editionF. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.)
Source The Orthodox ChurchTimothy Ware (Kallistos Ware)

The hypostatic union of two natures in one person of Christ is affirmed per the Chalcedonian Definition, binding on this tradition.

Source The Definition of Faith of the Council of ChalcedonCouncil of Chalcedonthe holders' own account
Incarnation, Doctrines

The Incarnation, God the Son taking human nature, is affirmed per the Chalcedonian Definition, binding on this tradition.

Source The Definition of Faith of the Council of ChalcedonCouncil of Chalcedonthe holders' own account

An Orthodox thurible is swung at the gospel book, the gifts, the altar, the clergy, the congregation and the coffin.

Source The Hebrew Bible (Tanakh)Anonymous (multiple authors)
Source Encyclopedia of ReligionMircea Eliade (ed.); Lindsay Jones (ed., 2nd ed.)

Infants are baptised, chrismated and communicated in one rite, so initiation is complete before the child can speak.

Source Service Book of the Holy Orthodox-Catholic Apostolic ChurchIsabel Florence Hapgood (compiler and translator)

International Orthodox Christian Charities is constituted as the official humanitarian agency of the Assembly of Canonical Orthodox Bishops of the United States of America, a pan-jurisdictional body spanning the Orthodox Communion in the US rather than any single Orthodox church, so linked to Eastern Orthodoxy at the tradition level rather than to any one national Orthodox church.

Intinction, Practices

Communion is given in both kinds together, the consecrated bread having been placed in the chalice and administered to each communicant from a spoon. The result is the same as intinction and the manner is not, and the practice here is ancient rather than adopted for convenience.

Source Service Book of the Holy Orthodox-Catholic Apostolic ChurchIsabel Florence Hapgood (compiler and translator)
Jesus Prayer, Prayers
Source The Praktikos and Chapters on PrayerEvagrius Ponticus; John Eudes Bamberger (trans.)

A father of the Greek church, kept in the Byzantine calendar and in the Roman one alike.

Source The Orthodox ChurchTimothy Ware (Kallistos Ware)
Source The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd revised editionF. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.)
Source The Orthodox ChurchTimothy Ware (Kallistos Ware)

Held as canonical scripture in the Eastern Orthodox Old Testament, affirmed at the Synod of Jerusalem, 1672.

Source The Confession of Dositheus (Synod of Jerusalem, 1672)Synod of Jerusalemthe holders' own account
Logos, Doctrines

The Logos Christology of John's Gospel prologue is affirmed across Nicene Christianity, including this tradition.

Source The Holy BibleAnonymous (multiple authors)

The marriage service is the Crowning, and the priest is the minister of the sacrament rather than a witness to a contract the couple make, which is the opposite of the Roman analysis.

Source Service Book of the Holy Orthodox-Catholic Apostolic ChurchIsabel Florence Hapgood (compiler and translator)
Matins, Practices
Meteora, Sacred Sites
Source The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd revised editionF. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.)

Clergy or specialist role within Eastern Orthodoxy.

Source The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd revised editionF. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.)

Tonsure is the rite of monastic profession itself, performed in degrees, and is not a preliminary to it.

Monastic Vows, Rituals

Monastic profession is made in degrees, the rassophore, the stavrophore and the great schema, rather than as a single set of three vows.

The Athonite monasteries are self-governing under the Ecumenical Patriarchate.

Source Mount Athos: Renewal in ParadiseGraham Speake

Kept as the Nativity of the Theotokos on September 8, the first of the Great Feasts of the Byzantine year, which begins on September 1.

Source The Orthodox ChurchTimothy Ware (Kallistos Ware)

Twenty-seven-book New Testament canon, shared across the Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox and Anglican traditions.

The Ninth Hour is prayed daily from the Horologion and precedes Vespers, so that the liturgical day turns on it.

Source Service Book of the Holy Orthodox-Catholic Apostolic ChurchIsabel Florence Hapgood (compiler and translator)
Nunc Dimittis, Prayers

The Nunc Dimittis is sung at the close of Vespers, not at Compline as in the West.

Source Service Book of the Holy Orthodox-Catholic Apostolic ChurchIsabel Florence Hapgood (compiler and translator)

Sunday is kept as the day of the Resurrection and the day of the Divine Liturgy, and Saturday retains a liturgical character of its own that the West largely lost.

Source The Orthodox ChurchTimothy Ware (Kallistos Ware)
Omnipotence, Doctrines

God's omnipotence is affirmed as classical theism common ground across Nicene Christianity, including this tradition.

Source Encyclopedia of ReligionMircea Eliade (ed.); Lindsay Jones (ed., 2nd ed.)

God's omnipresence is affirmed as classical theism common ground across Nicene Christianity, including this tradition.

Source The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd revised editionF. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.)
Omniscience, Doctrines

God's omniscience is affirmed as classical theism common ground across Nicene Christianity, including this tradition.

Source The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd revised editionF. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.)
Ordination, Practices

Orthodox teaching holds that ordination imparts an indelible character and the capacity to consecrate.

Source Encyclopedia of ReligionMircea Eliade (ed.); Lindsay Jones (ed., 2nd ed.)
Source The Orthodox ChurchTimothy Ware (Kallistos Ware)

The Byzantine rite as kept across the Eastern Orthodox churches.

Source Service Book of the Holy Orthodox-Catholic Apostolic ChurchIsabel Florence Hapgood (compiler and translator)
Source The Orthodox ChurchTimothy Ware (Kallistos Ware)
Panikhida, Rituals

Kept across the Eastern Orthodox churches.

Source Service Book of the Holy Orthodox-Catholic Apostolic ChurchIsabel Florence Hapgood (compiler and translator)
Source The Orthodox ChurchTimothy Ware (Kallistos Ware)
Patmos, Sacred Sites
Source UNESCO World Heritage ListUnited Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization
Source The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd revised editionF. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.)

Clergy or specialist role within Eastern Orthodoxy.

Source The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd revised editionF. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.)

Senior leadership office of Eastern Orthodoxy.

Source The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd revised editionF. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.)
Source The Orthodox ChurchTimothy Ware (Kallistos Ware)
Pilgrimage, Practices

Pilgrimage to Mount Athos, to Jerusalem and to the shrines of local saints is a settled devotion of this church.

Prayer, Practices

Prayer here is weighted toward the fixed cycle of the services and toward the short repeated prayer of the heart rather than toward extempore petition.

Source The Orthodox ChurchTimothy Ware (Kallistos Ware)

Included in the wider Eastern Orthodox Old Testament canon beyond the Trent-era Roman Catholic deuterocanon, affirmed at the Synod of Jerusalem, 1672.

Source The Confession of Dositheus (Synod of Jerusalem, 1672)Synod of Jerusalemthe holders' own account

The publican's petition is the direct ancestor of the Jesus Prayer, and the Sunday of the Publican and the Pharisee opens the Lenten cycle here.

Priests, ordained by a bishop, celebrate the Divine Liturgy and administer the sacraments in a parish under episcopal oversight.

Source The Orthodox ChurchTimothy Ware (Kallistos Ware)

Clergy or specialist role within Eastern Orthodoxy.

Source The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd revised editionF. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.)
Prime, Practices

The First Hour is prayed daily from the Horologion, appended to Matins, and was never suppressed here as Prime was in the Roman rite.

Source Service Book of the Holy Orthodox-Catholic Apostolic ChurchIsabel Florence Hapgood (compiler and translator)
Prophecy, Doctrines

Old and New Testament prophecy is affirmed as a mode of divine revelation across Nicene Christianity, including this tradition.

Source The Oxford Dictionary of World ReligionsJohn Bowker (ed.)

Clergy or specialist role within Eastern Orthodoxy.

Source The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd revised editionF. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.)

Included in the Eastern Orthodox Psalter beyond the Trent-era Roman Catholic canon, affirmed at the Synod of Jerusalem, 1672.

Source The Confession of Dositheus (Synod of Jerusalem, 1672)Synod of Jerusalemthe holders' own account

The Orthodox day of remembrance kept in the second week after Pascha.

Clergy or specialist role within Eastern Orthodoxy.

Source The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd revised editionF. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.)

The recapitulation theory of the atonement, drawn from Irenaeus, remains prominent in this tradition's patristic inheritance.

Source Against Heresies (Adversus Haereses)Irenaeus of Lyons
Redemption, Doctrines

Redemption through Christ's sacrifice is affirmed across Nicene Christianity, including this tradition.

Source The Holy BibleAnonymous (multiple authors)
Source Encyclopedia of ReligionMircea Eliade (ed.); Lindsay Jones (ed., 2nd ed.)

The bodily resurrection of the dead is affirmed across Nicene Christianity, including this tradition.

Source The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd revised editionF. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.)
Source The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd revised editionF. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.)

An autonomous monastery of the Orthodox church, on Sinai.

Source The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd revised editionF. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.)
Salvation, Doctrines

Salvation through Christ is affirmed across Nicene Christianity, including this tradition, though the mechanism of justification is debated separately.

Source The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd revised editionF. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.)

The Greek Septuagint is the traditional textual and canonical basis of the Eastern Orthodox Old Testament.

Russian Orthodoxy.

Source The Orthodox ChurchTimothy Ware (Kallistos Ware)
Source Encyclopedia of ReligionMircea Eliade (ed.); Lindsay Jones (ed., 2nd ed.)
Sext, Practices

The Sixth Hour is prayed daily from the Horologion and is joined to the Third in ordinary parish use.

Source Service Book of the Holy Orthodox-Catholic Apostolic ChurchIsabel Florence Hapgood (compiler and translator)
Son of God, Doctrines

Christ as the Son of God is affirmed across Nicene Christianity, including this tradition.

Source The Holy BibleAnonymous (multiple authors)

Eastern Orthodoxy, and within it the Russian and Greek monastic traditions in particular.

Source The Orthodox ChurchTimothy Ware (Kallistos Ware)

The Sub Tuum Praesidium, in its Greek form, is the oldest known prayer to the Theotokos and is in continuous use in these churches.

Clergy or specialist role within Eastern Orthodoxy.

Source The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd revised editionF. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.)
Source Acts of the Second Council of Nicaea (787), Definition on the holy imagesSecond Council of Nicaea (787)the holders' own account
Terce, Practices

The Third Hour is prayed daily from the Horologion and carries the commemoration of the descent of the Holy Spirit.

Source Service Book of the Holy Orthodox-Catholic Apostolic ChurchIsabel Florence Hapgood (compiler and translator)

The wartime population across the contested Ukrainian territory was predominantly Eastern Orthodox Christian by ordinary communal identity, but the pogroms were carried out by multiple armed factions of no single religious character, driven by wartime collapse, nationalist and revolutionary conflict and antisemitic scapegoating for the era's turmoil rather than by any church doctrine or hierarchy; this edge connects that shared communal identity to the wave without asserting it as Eastern Orthodoxy's own position.

The Anaphora, Rituals

The anaphoras of St John Chrysostom and St Basil the Great are used according to a fixed calendar, the longer Basil on ten days of the year.

Source The Byzantine Rite: A Short HistoryRobert F. Taft
Source The Orthodox ChurchTimothy Ware (Kallistos Ware)
The Epiclesis, Rituals

The epiclesis follows the institution narrative and is held to be the moment of consecration, which is the central Eastern difference from Western eucharistic theology.

Source Service Book of the Holy Orthodox-Catholic Apostolic ChurchIsabel Florence Hapgood (compiler and translator)
The Fraction, Rituals

The Lamb is broken into four particles marked IC XC NI KA, one placed in the chalice, one for the clergy and two for the communion of the people.

Source Service Book of the Holy Orthodox-Catholic Apostolic ChurchIsabel Florence Hapgood (compiler and translator)
Source Encyclopedia of ReligionMircea Eliade (ed.); Lindsay Jones (ed., 2nd ed.)

The Kingdom of God, present and coming, is affirmed across Nicene Christianity, including this tradition.

Source The Holy BibleAnonymous (multiple authors)

The creed confesses that Christ shall come again with glory to judge the living and the dead, and the last judgment is depicted in the churches of this tradition as a matter of course.

Source The Nicene-Constantinopolitan CreedFirst Council of Constantinoplethe holders' own account

The Lord's Prayer stands at the opening of almost every service in the Horologion and immediately before communion in the Divine Liturgy.

Source Service Book of the Holy Orthodox-Catholic Apostolic ChurchIsabel Florence Hapgood (compiler and translator)

The Orthodox call it the Divine Liturgy, most often that of John Chrysostom, sung throughout behind an icon screen, with leavened bread and communion given in both kinds from a spoon after preparation by fasting and confession.

Source The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd revised editionF. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.)

The perpetual virginity of Mary, Aeiparthenos, is affirmed doctrine in this tradition.

Source The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd revised editionF. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.)
Source The Protecting Veil (Tavener) (Wikipedia)Wikipedia contributors
Source Encyclopedia of ReligionMircea Eliade (ed.); Lindsay Jones (ed., 2nd ed.)
Source The Orthodox ChurchTimothy Ware (Kallistos Ware)

The virgin birth of Christ is affirmed across Nicene Christianity, including this tradition.

The institution narrative is recited within the anaphora, but the consecration is not located in it.

Source Service Book of the Holy Orthodox-Catholic Apostolic ChurchIsabel Florence Hapgood (compiler and translator)

The problem of evil is a live theological question this tradition addresses within classical theism.

Source The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd revised editionF. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.)
Source The Orthodox ChurchTimothy Ware (Kallistos Ware)
Theosis, Doctrines

Theosis, deification through participation in the divine energies, is central soteriology in this tradition's Palamite theology.

Source Encyclopedia of ReligionMircea Eliade (ed.); Lindsay Jones (ed., 2nd ed.)

Eastern Orthodox theology grounds the pursuit of theosis in the patristic teaching that God became human so that humanity might become god by grace.

Source The Oxford Dictionary of World ReligionsJohn Bowker (ed.)
Theotokos, Doctrines

Mary as Theotokos, God-bearer, is affirmed per the Chalcedonian Christological definition, binding on this tradition.

Source The Definition of Faith of the Council of ChalcedonCouncil of Chalcedonthe holders' own account

God's transcendence and immanence are affirmed as classical theism common ground across Nicene Christianity, including this tradition.

Source The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd revised editionF. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.)
Trinity, Doctrines

The doctrine of the Trinity, one God in three persons, is affirmed across Nicene Christianity, including this tradition.

Source The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd revised editionF. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.)
Source Encyclopedia of ReligionMircea Eliade (ed.); Lindsay Jones (ed., 2nd ed.)
Source Encyclopedia of ReligionMircea Eliade (ed.); Lindsay Jones (ed., 2nd ed.)
Vespers, Practices
Viaticum, Rituals

The Byzantine churches reserve the Lamb through the year for it.

Source The Westminster Confession of FaithWestminster Assemblythe holders' own account

Held as canonical scripture in the Eastern Orthodox Old Testament, affirmed at the Synod of Jerusalem, 1672.

Source The Confession of Dositheus (Synod of Jerusalem, 1672)Synod of Jerusalemthe holders' own account

Held as canonical scripture in the Eastern Orthodox Old Testament, affirmed at the Synod of Jerusalem, 1672.

Source The Confession of Dositheus (Synod of Jerusalem, 1672)Synod of Jerusalemthe holders' own account

Persecuted In

Position On

Amillennial, with the millennium read as the present reign of Christ with the saints.

Incarnation, Doctrines

The Chalcedonian definition, received as the fourth ecumenical council.

Closed communion, restricted to the canonically Orthodox.

The Eastern reading: what is inherited is mortality and its consequences, not the guilt of Adam's act.

The Eastern position, which declines the Western framing: foreknowledge is not causation, and synergy between grace and the will is assumed rather than argued.

Repentance, Doctrines

Repentance as sacramental, with the priest standing as witness rather than as judge.

Bodily resurrection at the end, with the departed conscious and prayed for in the interval.

Related To

The conversion brought the eastern Slavs into the Byzantine church rather than the Latin one, and the Orthodoxy of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus descends from the church planted at Kiev.

Source The Emergence of Rus, 750-1200Simon Franklin and Jonathan Shepard

Received as the fourth ecumenical council.

Source The Orthodox ChurchTimothy Ware (Kallistos Ware)

The Byzantine delegation accepted union at Florence, though most Eastern Orthodox clergy repudiated it soon after.

The schism produced the separate existence of the Eastern Orthodox communion as against the Latin church.

Source The Orthodox ChurchTimothy Ware (Kallistos Ware)

The seventh and last council the Eastern Orthodox churches count ecumenical.

Source The Orthodox ChurchTimothy Ware (Kallistos Ware)

Sacred to This Deity

Constantinople, Cities

The Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople holds a first-among-equals honor among Eastern Orthodox churches.

Studied By

Symbolized By

The three-bar cross is the emblem of Eastern Orthodox Christianity.

Source The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd revised editionF. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.)
Sources
1. The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd revised edition
F. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.), Oxford University Press, 2005s.v. Orthodox ChurchView the Source
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Wikipedia
3. Divorce and Remarriage, Questions and Answers (Orthodox Church in America)
Orthodox Church in Americathe live stated position on marriage and its supporting detailView the Source
4. Holy Synod Issues Statement on Same-Sex Relationships and Sexual Identity (Orthodox Church in America)
Orthodox Church in America, 2022the holders' own accountView the Source
5. Ordination of Women, Questions and Answers (Orthodox Church in America)
Orthodox Church in AmericaView the Source
6. The Orthodox Church
Timothy Ware (Kallistos Ware), Penguin Books, 1993View the Source
7. Wikipedia, Eastern Orthodox Church (source)
Wikipedia contributors, Wikipedia
8. Autocephalous Church (Encyclopaedia Britannica)
The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica, Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc.View the Source
9. Tithing (Questions & Answers)
Orthodox Church in AmericaTithing, Questions & Answers
Quote, Tithing, Questions & Answers
the thing that is critical is not the percentage or the origin of the maxim but, rather, that one is giving the first and the best of one's resources to the work of the Church
View the Source
10. Blanco Monks, Church Settle Sex Abuse Case
Molly Bloom, Austin American-Statesman, 2006View the Source
11. Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America Sexual Misconduct Policy
Holy Eparchial Synod, Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America, Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America, 2022View the Source
12. Orthodox Christianity in the 21st Century
Pew Research Center, 2017View the Source
Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils, 2 volumes
Norman P. Tanner (ed.), Sheed and Ward / Georgetown University Press, 1990View the Source
The Byzantine Rite: A Short History
Robert F. Taft, The Liturgical Press, Collegeville, 1992View the Source
The Canons of the First Council of Nicaea
First Council of Nicaea, 325the holders' own account
The Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed
First Council of Constantinople, 381The Nicene Creed text
Quote, The Nicene Creed text
We believe in one God, the Father almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all things visible and invisible.
the holders' own accountView the Source
Decrees of the Second Council of Nicaea
Second Council of Nicaea, 787the holders' own accountView the Source
The Council in Trullo Revisited
George Nedungatt and Michael Featherstone (eds.), Pontificio Istituto Orientale, 1995
Service Book of the Holy Orthodox-Catholic Apostolic Church
Isabel Florence Hapgood (compiler and translator), Houghton Mifflin, 1906View the Source
The Definition of Faith of the Council of Chalcedon
Council of Chalcedon, 451Session IV, Definition of Faith
Quote, Session IV, Definition of Faith
Following the holy Fathers we teach with one voice that the Son of God and our Lord Jesus Christ is to be confessed as one and the same Person, that he is perfect in Godhead and perfect in manhood, very God and very man.
the holders' own accountView the Source
A History of Byzantine Music and Hymnography
Egon Wellesz, Clarendon Press, 1961View the Source
Encyclopedia of Religion
Mircea Eliade (ed.); Lindsay Jones (ed., 2nd ed.), Macmillan Reference, 2005Entry on the Eastern Orthodox Church
Quote, Entry on the Eastern Orthodox Church
The 1054 excommunications were personal and are a marker on a long curve rather than the cause of the division.
View the Source
Tomos of Autocephaly of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine
Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, 2019Signed 5 January 2019
Quote, Signed 5 January 2019
Moscow broke communion with Constantinople on 15 October 2018; the tomos followed on 5 January 2019.
the holders' own account
The Philokalia
Compiled by Nikodimos of the Holy Mountain and Makarios of Corinth, Faber and Faber, 1782Texts on prayer of the heart
Quote, Texts on prayer of the heart
The hesychast tradition underlies the Orthodox account of salvation as theosis.
View the Source
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