Greek Orthodoxy

It is important to kiss holy icons or images, as this is a sign of respect, in the same way that we kiss a picture of our mother, father, husband, wife or children, to show the respect that we have for our loved ones. When we kiss a photo or picture of a family member or loved one, we are not woshipping them and we are not kissing the paper or wood or glass of the photo or frame. In the same way, when we kiss an icon of the holy saints, we are not kissing the physical material of the icon, but rather, we are showing respect and honour towards the person who is represented in the icon. Orthodox Christians often kiss, respect, venerate and honour icons, but they do not woship icons. Orthodox Christians only worship God. The Bible has many examples of how holy icons were used as an aid to worshipping God, even in Old Testament times. For example, when God commanded Moses to make images of cherubim angels for the Temple "In the Most Holy Place he made two cherubim..." (2Chronicles 3:10). So when we kiss an icon of our Lord Jesus Christ, it is as though we are kissing Christ Himself. Jesus does not condemn this practice, but rather sees it as an act of respect, just like He did with the sinful woman in the Bible: "You gave me no kiss, but this woman has not ceased to kiss my feet since the time I came in." (Luke 7:45)

There is one Orthodox Church. Many of the parishes of the Orthodox Church happen to be Greek, especially in Greece.

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The Orthodox Church has a similar structure to the Catholic Church. Churches are divided mainly on ethnic groups, without any differences on belief. They have autonomy but they are all (spiritual) subjects of the Patriarchy (the father Church) located in Istanbul. The Patriarch is like the Pope.

Almost all of the churches are dedicated to a saint.

Hold an Orthodox Funeral.

It's just Catholic, not Roman Catholic. Roman is an epithet first commonly used in England after the protestant revolt to describe the Catholic Church. It is never used by the official Catholic Church.

No, Bishops, priests, and deacons are ordained to be figures of Christ, who was a man. In Christian theology, the Church, and the people of God are represented as the feminine, the spouse of the Lord, who is the Head. Bridal imaginary is used throughout the Bible to represent Christ/God and His Church. Thus the clergy as being "other Christs" must be male as this is how Our Blessed Lord set things up. Our duty is to believe in humble obedience.

Judaism has different concepts. No one is canonized or beatified and no dead person can serve as an intercessor between a person and God. Torah-scholars, and those who practice chessed (kindness) are held up as examples, and the greatest among them can be seen as religious leaders, but that's it.

figure it out yourself

Greek Orthodox Church of the Annunciation was created in 1769.

That depends on the knowledge of the person seeking to convert. If they already know a lot about the religion, it could take a few months, but if not, it could take up to a year. An Orthodox priest will guide the person and let them know when they are ready.

The answers is no, if he wasn't divorced,yes,because the catholic church recognises the orthodox church as valid since they were one church before.However if he is divorced he is not allowed in either catholic or orthodox.

A Catholic can marry any non- Catholic, and it is recognized as a sacrament in the Catholic church. Only when the individual has been previously married there is an issue. In which case that individual must have their previous marriage annuled. The Catholic church permits Catholics to marry in the Orthodox church and it is a sacrament. I have spoken to Catholic priests and Catholic Bishops and they do not see a problem with a Greek annulment, as being an impediment. If that individual did not have their marriage previously annulled than it would be an issue.

Jesus was a bit cryptic over the question of whether or not He was a "king"... but He did answer Pilate:

"...Art thou the King of the Jews? And Jesus said unto Him, Thou sayest." (Matt.27:11)

"...Thou sayest that I am a king. To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the Truth. Every one that is of the Truth heareth My voice. Pilate saith unto Him, What is Truth?..." (John 18:37-38).

It was the Jews whom He didn't answer:

"And when He was accused of the chief priests and elders, He answered nothing." (verse 12)

Jesus didn't answer Pilate on his question about "Truth," however.

Every day

No. In order to be able to partake of the Holy Sacrament of Communion, you must be baptized and christmated(confirmed) in the Church in which you plan to receive the first communion. However, you are unable to be baptized in both churches, as the church in which the child has been baptized for the second baptism, becomes the Church in which they stand in and can only stay in that church, unless they convert to the other church, and lost the "right" to take communion in the church they converted form.

Yes

NOt only to say yes that we are christians, We are the Mother of all Christians

We are the purest held Christians to this day. Welcome and learn about the Full truth of Christ through Orthodoxy. This is why we are called Orthodox, because we kept our religion pure unaltered with no dogmas or heresies that the others have contributed to themselves. We also never added as the Roman church did or subtracted as the many divided Protestant denominations.

We did not accept the pope as a supremacy, because the only leader of the Orthodox church is Jesus Christ himself. No bishop or Archibishop or Patriarche is the same as a pope. All they get is a higher level of respect to preserve the faith and get the info out to the people. Each Patriarch represents their country, since there are other orthodox Christians other than Greeks, but they still hold no power over the people as the Pope's views are by the Catholic people. In those days the new Roman Catholics looked at the Pope like a God and that was a sin in our eyes. We only look at Jesus that way.

Yes, of course. The word 'eucharist' comes from the Greek word 'eucharistia' which means 'thanksgiving'. The Eucharist (also known as Holy Communion) is the most important part of an Orthodox Divine Liturgy.

This is a very hard question - my Priest told me that we shouldn't think in numbers. However, most estimates are between 250 million to 350 million. Other estimates are much higher including people who are Orthodox on paper but are not actively involved in the Church. Also, this number is steadily increasing in many former Communist countries where people are returning back to the Church. There are also many non-Orthodox parishes accepting the Orthodox faith throughout lands that are not traditionally Orthodox. There are also many millions of Non-Chaledonian Oriental Orthodox Christians, with the largest number in Ethiopia.

When Orthodox Christians cross themselves, they use the first three fingers, representing the Holy Trinity, and the other two fingers are placed against the palm, representing the dual nature of Christ (God and Man). They begin at the forehead then go to the right shoulder, the left shoulder, and then to the abdomen. (An extended version used mainly by ascetics touches the ground after touching the left shoulder.)

Not really, although some Greek Orthodox accept them by 'economia' which means by dispensation or by making an exception to the rule. However, many Orthodox do not regard a Catholic baptism as valid, because Roman Catholics no longer baptize; they now sprinkle with water.

The word baptize comes from the Greek word 'baptizma' which means to immerse and completely cover in water. Sprinkling with water is called 'aspersion', but it is not the same as a baptism.

An Orthodox baptism is recognized by all Catholics, but Catholic baptisms are not recognized by all Orthodox.

Baptism by triple immersion has been the tradition of the Orthodox Church for the last 2,000 years, but the Roman Catholics stopped performing baptisms in 1545 when the Council of Trent made aspersion the official position.

The Patriarch is the authoritative figure for The Greek Orthodox Church.

The year is when the Great Schism occured, separating the Catholic and Eastern Orhtodox Church.

In 325AD there were hundreds of chuches, each with its own teachings, views of Jesus and how to worship him. This was becasue of the mixing of the local faiths with the teachings of the individual apostles.

In 325, Constantine the Great saught to unite all of the churches and he did, under the Holy ROman Orthodox Church. Under the new faith, each church would be its own entity under the Orthdox faith. The largest member church was the Western Church. Others included the Coptic, Greek, Armenian, Egyptian, Antioch and Palestinian Church.

After 700 years of coperative rule, the Wester Churches split because they wanted their own supreme leader because of their vast size. So in 1056 the Roman Catholic church split from the Orthodox faith, and because the remaining members of ORthodoxy were in Eastern Europe we rtend to call them Eastern Orthodox.

Gilead was a place of judgment in Israel where the priests and elders heard cases of dispute and acted to enforce God's law among His people, bringing justice and therefore peace, rest, a "soothing balm" to cure the open wounds "destructive effects" of the disease of sin.

In the Psalms, the Prophets and other parts of the Bibile references to wounds, shedding of blood and and, finally, murder are allusions to the harm that the "balm of Gilead" would heal if only the spiritual shepherds and all those who follow them had real mercy and really cared about justice and truth rather than hollow religion.

This is seen by (knowledgeable) Christians as a forerunner of St. Paul's New Testament commands that all those in the Church proactively enforce God's laws amongst themselves, rather than in secular court.

The origins of this are to be found very prominently (with terrible warnings) in the instructions given by Moses, and the curses foreseen by Moses (especially in the final chapters of Deuteronomy just before he died) and witnessed by the Prophets thereafter among God's people.

The punishments and eventual destruction of Israel then Judah were, according to the Prophets, mostly related to the failure to do this constant, vigilant and impartial enforcement of God's laws, especially failure of the priests and all those in any tind or level of authority. The failure to do so consistently is seen in Old and New Testament contexts and is connected to total social, moral, familial, marital and spiritual breakdown and ultimately economic, political and military collapse.

Thus, the "balm of Gilead" was not only the means of curing injustice in specific cases, but the process which God established and constantly reminded them of, by which His people could avoid total destruction and subjugation to their enemies.

In Isaiah chapters 58, 59 and 1 the warning is given that no ammount of theological orthodoxy and sincere, heartfelt, even passionate prayer and worship will save anyone from rejection by God and terrible punishment if the fail to intervene for the "widow, orphan and the poor" -- words which in the Hebrew are far more relevant to moder life and their meannig is far broader: "Widow" = abandoned spouse (usually by divorce) "orphan" = children cut off from their fathers (again usually by divorce, not by death) and "poor" = the afflicted.

Relevance of these warnings of God's total destruction" (see Moses' repeated warnings, or Malachi, for example) today is almost entirely missed because in both the Old and New Testaments women are given no right to leave their husbands, therefore the victims of unjust divorces were in Biblical times almost always women. In modern times with the liberalization of divorce laws about 60% of divorces are filed by women, almost always for reasons that would historically be considered unacceptable.

Thus, ironically, the Hebrew meaning of the term "widow" (and its counterpart in New Testament Greek) now applies to men whose wives have divorced them and taken the children, using the secular courts to effectively separate fathers and children. Any doubt about this is resolved by study of the book of Malachi, which culminates in the final words of the Old Testament: a terrifying threat from God that if the hearts of the fathers and their children are not re-united He, God will totally destroy the land, that is the nation and the people.

Again, the "balm of Gilead" is a reference to the means of bringing justice that prevents strife and family breakdown getting worse and worse with each generation until large numbers of children are cut off from their earthly fathers, and thus, in God's eyes, are damaged spiritually as a result.

From this perspective, the constant (mostly subtle) biblical allusions to Jezebel, the harlot, her "sorceries" (manipulations) and the suffering and oppression that result from the spirit of Jezebel -- and, likewise, the modern impact of feminism -- are seen as the direct result of successive generations of lacking the "balm in Gilead," where God's commanded order for marriage and family is enforced, especially by the spiritual shepherds, but eforced by all.

The Orthodox Church and the Roman Church both have apostolic succession so they are equally old. Anyway at one stage they were one church called the Catholic Orthodox Church or The Universal Truth. The western church (Catholic) wanted to change the creed (a sum of the faith) and started declaring papal supremacy over the other churches - the Orthodox church views the St.Peter on the rock thing a Primacy of Honour not infallibility since Jesus did not make one apostle greater than the other. These were the main events that caused the 1054 schism and creating officially the Catholic and Orthodox Church. However seeing how the Catholic Church changed its teachings,liturgy among other things. The Orthodox Church did not change anything before or after the 1054 schism That is why the Catholic Church views the Orthodox Church as valid, but the Orthodox Church doesn't for the Catholic Church

== == == == The answer to the question is St. Anthony of Padua, of the Franciscan order.

It does not have one central seat, because each jurisdiction has its own spiritual head, but Constantinople is the seat of the Ecumenical Patriarch, who is considered to be the 'First among equals' in the Orthodox Church.

The generally accepted date for the split between what is now called the Roman Catholic Church and what is now called the Eastern Orthodox Church is 1054 AD. The Anglican Church is generally considered to come from the time of King Henry VIII in the 1530s, although some would say that the Anglicanism originated in the Elizabethan Settlement of 1559, since Queen Mary effectively returned the Church of England to Roman Catholicism earlier in the 1550s. In any case, since the people who subsequently became Church of England were previously Roman Catholic, and not Eastern Orthodox, and since the Orthodox and the Catholics parted ways in 1054, you might say that the Anglicans broke away from the Roman Catholics, but it would be extremely difficult to say the Anglicans broke away from the Eastern Orthodox.