Greek Orthodoxy

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.

There are two: 1) The Holy Bible, and 2) The Holy Tradition.

The Orthodox Church views the Holy Bible as being very important, and equal with the Holy Tradition (ie. the unwritten and oral traditions of Jesus Christ and the Church). The Holy Scriptures are a collection of Books of the New Testament that came out of the Holy Tradition of the Early Christian Church. The Bible did not just appear out of thin air, it was revealed by God and later put together by the holy Fathers of the Orthodox Church.

At the time when Jesus Christ established His Church in Jerusalem in 33 AD, there was no Bible. There were only the Old Testament scriptures. So for the first few centuries of its existence, the Church had no New Testament Scriptures at all, and for at least the first 500 years, there was no printed Bible as we have today. Most people could not even read or write and there was certainly no printing press at that time. The people would hear the Scriptures and hold the traditions they were taught by the priests and bishops at that time (2 Thess 2:15). Christ says, "blessed are those who hear the word of God and keep it" (Luke 11:28).

Orthodox Christians believe in the doctrines taught in the Nicene Creed (without the "filoque" - "and the son" illicitly added in the west. Summarized:

* One God, expressed in the Holy Trinity

. Father Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth

. Jesus Christ, only-begotten Son of God, true God who for our salvation took on human flesh, was crucified and resurrected, and is now in heaven. He will return as mankind's judge.

. The Holy Spirit, the creator and giver of life, proceeds from the Father, and spoke through the prophets.

* One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church ["catholic" meaning "believing that which is believed by Christians everywhere"].

* The resurrection of all [and judgement].

* Eternal life [for those who pass the judgement].

All Orthodox christians go to church on Sundays.

If by 'Greek Orthodox' you mean the Eastern Orthodox Faith (of which Greek Orthodoxy is a part) then it began in the year 33 AD.

If you are referring to the Church of Greece, then it began in the year 1850. However, Orthodox Christianity existed in Greece since New Testament times (from St Paul's travels to Athens) and for most of its history, Greece came under the jurisdiction of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople.

The name "Greek Orthodox" should not be used to describe the whole Eastern Orthodox Church. People who are Greek and Orthodox belong to the same Orthodox Christian Faith. There is no nationality in the Orthodox Church. It is open to people of all backgrounds, races and cultures.

The Orthodox Church is not a denomination. The Orthodox Church is the original Christian church, founded by Jesus Christ and His apostles. "Denominations" are the Christian groups which trace their histories back to splitting off from the Orthodox faith.

True, the Orthodox Church has historically always taught and preached in the local language of the people (as this is a requirement of the Bible) and has done so for many centuries, especially during the height of the Byzantine Empire. Unfortunately, this has not happened as much in recent decades, due to the political and economic decline of many traditionally Orthodox nations.

Those who follow the Julian (Old Calendar) celebrate Christmas on 7 January.

Those who follow the Gregorian (New Calendar) celebrate Christmas on 25 December.

Generally speaking, most Greek churches now use the New Calendar, while the Russians and Serbians continue to use the original Julian Calendar.

Armenians celebrate Christmas on January 6.

I'm not sure about the Greek Orthodox's Church perspective, but the divorced Roman Catholic woman is still technically in the sacrament of marriage with the man, until it is nullified by the Catholic Church.

The Eastern Orthodox Church is a Christian church. All Christian churches share the belief that Jesus Christ is God, born on Earth as a man, and that salvation, or freedom from sin, is to be attained by following Christ as one's personal Lord and Saviour.

Just as doctrine varies among other Christian churches, the Orthodox Church has doctrine that sets it apart. Some notable points are the Orthodox perspectives on the meaning of salvation, the concept of heaven and hell, and whether the Bible is to be interpreted literally.

If you would like to investigate the differences between Eastern Orthodoxy and other Christian churches such as Catholicism and various Protestant denominations, a wealth of information is available at the Orthodox Church of America's website, which you will find in the related links section.

Generally, the answer is no, if the marriage is going to take place in a church. An Orthodox Christian is responsible for raising the children, if any, in the Orthodox Faith, even in cases of mixed marriages, so a non-religious person may not be comfortable with that. However, there are exceptions, and it may be best to check with your local Eastern Orthodox priest or bishop about any specific requirements they may have.

No

They wear Vestments while conducting the Divine Liturgy and the Sacraments.