Eastern Orthodox Church

Lore & Background

According to Eastern Orthodox tradition, the history of the Eastern Orthodox Church is traced back to Jesus Christ and the Apostles. The Apostles appointed successors, known as bishops, and they in turn appointed other bishops in a process known as Apostolic succession. Over time, five Patriarchates were established to organize the Christian world: Rome, Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem. Four of these ancient patriarchates remain Orthodox today. In the early medieval period, Orthodox missionaries spread Christianity towards the north, to the Bulgarians, Serbs, Russians and others. A gradual process of estrangement took place between the four Eastern Patriarchates and the Latin Church of Rome, culminating with the Great Schism in the 11th century, in which Orthodoxy and the Latin Church separated from each other. In the Late Middle Ages, the Fall of Constantinople brought a large part of the world's Orthodox Christians under Ottoman Turkish rule. Nevertheless, Orthodoxy continued to flourish in Russia, as well as within the Ottoman Empire among the latter's Christian subject peoples. As the Ottoman Empire declined in the 19th century and several majority-Orthodox nations regained their independence, they organized a number of new autocephalous Orthodox churches in Southern and Eastern Europe.

Reader's Guide

The Eastern Orthodox Church is a communion of autocephalous churches, each governed by its bishops via local synods, with no central doctrinal or governmental authority analogous to the pope; the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople is recognized as primus inter pares ('first among equals'). The Eastern Orthodox jurisdictions with the largest number of adherents in modern times are the Russian and the Romanian Orthodox churches. The most ancient of the Eastern Orthodox communities existing today are the churches of Jerusalem, Antioch, Alexandria, Constantinople, and Georgia. The history of the Eastern Orthodox Church includes the formation, events, and transformation of the church through time. According to the Eastern Orthodox tradition, the history is traced back to Jesus Christ and the Apostles. The Apostles appointed successors, known as bishops, and they in turn appointed other bishops in a process known as Apostolic succession. Over time, five Patriarchates were established to organize the Christian world, and four of these ancient patriarchates remain Orthodox today. Orthodox Christianity reached its present form in late antiquity (in the period from the 3rd to the 8th century), when the ecumenical councils were held, doctrinal disputes were resolved, the Fathers of the Church lived and wrote, and Orthodox worship practices settled into their permanent form (including the liturgies and the major holidays of the Church).

Did You Know?

• The Eastern Orthodox tradition traces its history back to Jesus Christ and the Apostles, who appointed successors known as bishops in a process called Apostolic succession.
• Five Patriarchates were established to organize the Christian world: Rome, Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem. Four of these ancient patriarchates remain Orthodox today.
• The Great Schism between Orthodoxy and the Latin Church (later called the Roman Catholic Church) occurred in the 11th century.
• The Fall of Constantinople in the Late Middle Ages brought a large part of the world's Orthodox Christians under Ottoman Turkish rule.
• The Eastern Orthodox jurisdictions with the largest number of adherents in modern times are the Russian and the Romanian Orthodox churches.

Origins and the Two Paths of Formation

Eastern Protestant Christianity—sometimes called Eastern Reformed or Oriental Protestant Christianity—refers to a diverse collection of Protestant denominations that took root outside the Western world beginning in the second half of the nineteenth century. What unites them is the retention of distinctive Eastern Christian elements within a Protestant theological framework. Their formation followed two broad trajectories. In one, churches that grew out of Western Protestant missionary work gradually embraced variants of Eastern liturgy and worship, reshaping them to align with Protestant doctrine. In the other, communities already belonging to the Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, or Assyrian Church of the East traditions were drawn toward Protestant beliefs and practices after encountering Western Protestant missionaries, yet chose to preserve their inherited Eastern liturgical heritage. The result is a family of churches that straddle two great Christian traditions, holding Eastern worship forms in conversation with Reformed or Lutheran theological commitments.

The Malankara Mar Thoma Syrian Church: Reform, Conflict, and Independence

In the latter half of the nineteenth century, South India was under British imperial rule, and the Malankara Church—an Oriental Orthodox body in communion with the Syriac Orthodox Patriarchate of Antioch—underwent a period of transformation. Anglican missionaries from England arrived and took teaching positions at the church's seminary, making the Bible available in Malayalam. Opposition was fierce, and both factions dragged the dispute into the courts over church governance and property. The litigation concluded in 1889 with a verdict siding with the Patriarchal faction, after which the reformers broke away to form the independent Malankara Mar Thoma Syrian Church. Today it counts eleven bishops, 1,149 priests, and more than a million lay members. The church preserves Syriac high-church worship practices, employing a reformed version of the Liturgy of Saint James with substantial portions in the local language, while holding to Reformed theology. It stands in full communion with the Anglican Communion.

Eastern Lutheranism: Byzantine Rite Meets Confessional Theology

Eastern Lutheranism represents a distinctive fusion: Lutheran churches in regions such as Ukraine and Slovenia that worship using a form of the Byzantine Rite, the liturgical tradition historically associated with the Eastern Orthodox Church. This creates a worship experience where the prayer rhythms, structure, and aesthetic of Eastern Christianity carry the doctrinal substance of the Lutheran Reformation. Some adherents view their movement as an unbroken continuation of the apostolic tradition. In Russia, Laestadians of Lutheran background cooperate with the Ingrian church, while the interdenominational nature of the movement means some participants are Eastern Orthodox—these are known as Ushkovayzet. The Ukrainian Lutheran Church, with its twenty-five congregations and over 2,500 members, operates Saint Sophia Ukrainian Lutheran Theological Seminary in Ternopil and belongs to the Confessional Evangelical Lutheran Conference.

Communion, Schism, and the Broader Protestant Family

Yet because Protestantism itself encompasses a wide range of polities, practices, liturgies, and theological orientations, there is no single universal communion binding all Eastern Protestant churches together. This diversity is visible in the Reformed and Presbyterian branch. The St. Thomas Evangelical Church of India emerged from a 1961 schism within the Malankara Mar Thoma Syrian Church and now operates as an Evangelical, Episcopal denomination in Kerala, holding that Scripture alone is the inspired, inerrant, and infallible Word of God. The Assyrian Evangelical Church gained ecclesiastical independence from a Presbyterian mission in Iran in 1870 and serves predominantly Eastern Aramaic-speaking ethnic Assyrians, many of whom face persecution.