So what is orthodox christianity again?

hey guys,
i never post on this particular forum, but decided tonight on a whim to swing on by and check you all out. I scanned over some posts, but did not find anything directly stating what yall believe and where you came from and all that good stuff. So if you could be so kind as to enlighten me. I am extremely unfamilar with orthodox doctrine.

To give you a bit of background, I was born and raised Catholic, and then reborn into the faith after much research. My intentions are simply to become as aware of other denominations (hope that is not insulting)as possible. Thank you for taking the time to fill me in here.

May the peace of the Lord be with you all.

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"Holy Mother, may you inflict the stripes of the Crucified One deeply on my heart." -- [Stabat Mater, G.P da Palestrina, 1525-94]

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Hi Rising_Suns,

You will find as a Catholic that we believe many of the same things (we were one Church before 1054 after all), epecially when it come to divisions with the more vocal Protestants. For example we hold to

• Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist
• Mystical nature of the Sacraments (not just symbolic)
• Rejection of Sola Scriptura
• Communion of the Saints
• ...

Here you can read more in detail on The Orthodox Faith

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From the CF Dictionary:

Tradition of men: Biblical doctrine that I disagree with.

Word of God: My personal opinion.


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I hope this link can help you out. http://goarch.org/en/ourfaith/

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thank you oblio and andreas.
Unfortunately, I do not have the time to sit down and read pages upon pages of explanations. It would be of much benefit for maybe one of you to create a simple Q&A thread and make it a sticky for people like me with questions. I'm sure there have been many people like me who are curious, but simply do not have much time to delve too far into something that doesn't seem too great of incentive to pursue. Thank you all again for your time.

May the peace of our Lord be with you all.

__________________
"Holy Mother, may you inflict the stripes of the Crucified One deeply on my heart." -- [Stabat Mater, G.P da Palestrina, 1525-94]

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Ya know, I started one of those just prior to the great crash of 2003 ...

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From the CF Dictionary:

Tradition of men: Biblical doctrine that I disagree with.

Word of God: My personal opinion.


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I'm going to do some searching to see if I can find a short FAQ page on Orthodoxy.

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OrthodoxInfo is a good resource.

__________________
Christ is risen from the dead! Trampling down death by death! And on those in the tombs bestowing life!

thank you thank you. that site is great philip, but again, i have not the time to spend to search answers to my questions among many pages and links of info.

I am basically trying to get to the heart of what you all believe. If you could convince me of why the orthodox church is the one true church and you had limited amount of words to say, what would you say? I am sitting here, still in confusion of what separates you from, say, the Catholic faith. I'm looking for the heart of your proclaimed truth. Tell me. I'm all ears.

Thank you again brothers.

May the peace of our Lord be with you all.

__________________
"Holy Mother, may you inflict the stripes of the Crucified One deeply on my heart." -- [Stabat Mater, G.P da Palestrina, 1525-94]

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On most of the points we differ, there are two levels of disagreement. Usually, there is a theological difference as well as a difference on who has the authority to make binding theological statements.

For example, consider the filioque clause ("and the Son") in the Creed. This was not part of the Creed written by the Ecumenical Council. Even if we were to agree that this is synonymous with "through the Son", we do not accept that anyone had the authority to alter the Creed.

We differ in mindset. That mindset leads to differences in dogma and doctrine. The major theological differences we have are these (in no real order):

• Papal Infallibility We believe that the Church as a whole is protected from error. This does not apply to any one person.
• Papal Primacy We believe that the Pope, as a successor of St Peter and Bishop of the Imperial City, holds a primacy of honor. He does not hold a primacy of grace, authority, or jurisdiction.
• Transubstantiation We believe our Lord is truly and bodily present in the elements of the Eucharist. We do not, however, require that a believer hold to any one particular explanation of how He becomes present.
• Purgatory Some of us believe in an intermediary state of purification, but we do not hold it as dogma.
• Original Sin We have a different understanding of Original Sin. We view it as our fallen nature, our ability to sin. We are not "guilty" of it.
• The Holy Theotokos We love, honor, and venerate the Mother of God. We ask for her intercession. We do not accept the Immaculate Conception. We do believe that she was bodily assumed into heaven, but we do not count this as dogma.
• Venial and Deadly Sin All sin is deadly.

I am probably forgetting some, but these are the major differences. However, they are symptoms of our separation, not necessarily the cause of our separation.

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Christ is risen from the dead! Trampling down death by death! And on those in the tombs bestowing life!

While I agree completely with what Philip said above, I would like to add a clarification with regard to the following:

Insofar as transubstantiation means the complete change of the eucharistic bread and wine into the Body and Blood of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, Orthodox Christians do believe in transubstantiation and, according to several local Church councils, are even allowed to call it by that name.

We go no further than that and hold that the Blessed Sacrament is a divine mystery. We are not required to call what we believe about the Eucharist by any particular name such as transubstantiation.

That said, however, the Lutheran doctrine of Consubstantiation and the Calvinist doctrine of the merely spiritual Presence of Christ in the Eucharist are both incompatible with Orthodox thought.

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