Our Faith

The Orthodox Christian Church (also often referred to as the “Eastern Orthodox Church” or simply “the Orthodox Church”) is the Church that Christ promised, the Holy Spirit established, and the Apostles first led since the day of Pentecost. The Orthodox Christian Church has a continuous 2,000-year history from the time the Apostles until today with an unbroken history of worship, doctrines, and administration. This has given the church deep and lasting roots since Christian Antiquity steeped in rich Biblical tradition. With roughly 260 million members worldwide, Orthodoxy is second in size only to the Roman Catholic Church. However, in spite of its size, relatively few Americans are aware that it exists. 

The Orthodox Christian Church consists of various self-ruling “jurisdictions.” Thus, one often hears about the “Greek Orthodox Church” or the “Russian Orthodox Church” or the “Antiochian Orthodox Church.” These are all part of the same, universal Orthodox Faith, and thus, all of the canonical Orthodox Churches are fully united in faith and worship.

The Church is an essential element of Christian doctrine and life. The Church, as a divine reality, provides the necessary mystical and sacramental means for individuals to achieve full communion with God, which would be otherwise impossible in the fallen and sinful world. The Church is God’s gift to the world. Through Christ, it offers the gift of salvation, of knowledge and enlightenment, of the forgiveness of sins, and of victory over darkness and death. It is the gift of communion with God through Christ and the Holy Spirit. This gift is given totally, once and for all, with no reservations on God’s part. It remains forever, until the close of the ages: invincible and indestructible. Men may sin and fight against the Church, believers may fall away and be separated from the Church, but the Church itself, the “pillar and bulwark of the truth” (1 Tim 3.15) remains forever.

. . . [God] has put all things under His [Christ’s] feet and has made Him the head over all things for the Church, which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all.

. . . for through Him we . . . have access in one Spirit, to the Father. So then you are no longer strangers and sojourners, but you are fellow-citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus Himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure is joined together and grows into a holy temple in the Lord; in whom you also are built into it for a dwelling place of God in the Spirit.

. . . Christ loved the Church and gave Himself up for her, that he might sanctify her by the washing of water with the word, that He might present the Church to Himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish . . . This is a Great Mystery . . . Christ and the Church . . .
(Eph 1.21–23; 2.19–22; 5.25–32)

The Church exists to continue the work and ministry of Jesus Christ. This is the work of bringing people to repentance—the turning of one’s life away from sin and the false promises of a purely material existence toward a true and living relationship with Christ. As repentance deepens, the heart is purified and becomes a dwelling place of the Kingdom of God. Yet this turning is not accomplished by human effort alone but is made possible through faith in Christ, who unites us to Himself by His grace. The Orthodox Church teaches that salvation is the healing and restoration of the whole person, and this begins with humility: the honest acknowledgment of our sinfulness and our dependence on God’s mercy. Humility softens the heart, making it receptive to divine grace; repentance redirects it toward transformation; and faith sustains it in communion with Christ. These are all integral parts forming the path of salvation, the continuation of Christ’s saving work in the world, drawing each person into communion with Him and into the eternal life of His Kingdom. In this way, the believer is gradually illumined by the Holy Spirit, who reshapes the heart into the likeness of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

Being asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God was coming, he answered them, “The kingdom of God is not coming with signs to be observed; nor will they say, ‘Lo, here it is!’ or ‘There!’ for behold, the kingdom of God is within you” (Luke 17:20-21).

Today, there are many different denominations in Christianity. If you were to reverse time, you would see a process of these splintered groups re-connecting to one another, little by little, until you were left with just one Church. This is the Orthodox Christian Church. What would later be known as other denominations of Christianity have definitive beginnings over one-thousand years after the date of the founding of the Church on Pentecost by the Holy Spirit. These denominations are typically groups that splintered off of other denominations due to disagreements about leadership, doctrine, or worship. Therefore, no denomination can claim a continuous, unbroken existence – devoid of doctrinal diversity and confusion – except the True Church which traces its roots to the time of the Apostles

In the pages of the New Testament we read the beginnings of the Orthodox Church, and even today Orthodox Christianity continues to live on in most of the places mentioned in the New Testament where the Apostles first preached the Gospel. This is the Church that wrote, compiled and canonized the Holy Scriptures, that formulated the traditional doctrines of Christianity, and that has believed and lived the same faith for 2,000 years.

So, what is Orthodox Christianity? It is the life in faith of the Orthodox Church, inseparable from that concrete, historic community and constituting its whole way of life. The Orthodox Christian faith is that faith “handed once to the saints” (Jude 3), passed on to the apostles by Jesus Christ, and then handed down from one generation to the next within the Church, without adding anything or taking anything away.