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Icon of the Theotokos
(Greek: "Mother of God")
Icon of St. Anthony
Icon: "White Angel"
(Serbian)
Most of the Icons featured in this
website are courtesy of
St. Isaac of Syria
Skete
Boscobel, Wisconsin.
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The "Orthodox Church" is the first Christian Church -
founded by
Jesus Christ and described in the pages of the
New Testament, in the Book of
Acts. The Church's
history can be traced in unbroken continuity back to
Christ and His Twelve
Apostles.
Many might be surprised to learn that for the first 1,000 years of
Christian
history, there was just one Church, one part centered around
Rome (the
"Western" Church) and the rest around
four, large geographic centers: Jerusalem, Antioch, Constantinople
and Alexandria (collectively, the "Eastern" Church).
However, during the eleventh century, a disastrous
split
occurred in which the Western Church, under the pope, separated
itself from the rest of the Orthodox Church. The
pope sought to become
the leader over all of Christendom but the rest of the Church rejected
this, knowing no other "universal head" apart from Jesus Christ Himself.
Today, the Church's apostolic doctrine, worship and structure
remain
intact as they
have for nearly 2,000 years. Orthodoxy maintains that the
Church is
the "living" Body
of Jesus Christ. It is the second largest
body in Christendom with 225 million
people worldwide. But in the
U.S. and
Canada, there are less than six million
and it's not well
known to most
North Americans.
The Orthodox Church in North America
It was from the religious
- political West that the vast majority of early
colonists
came to make their homes in the New World. Here they could
be free to live without fear or threat or recrimination from either Roman
Catholic or Protestant dictums. But with them also came the
religious
environment
and convictions of Western Europe.
When the Orthodox "latecomers" finally arrived in North America, they
were often ignored as a "foreign" minority. As
the religious culture was
already deeply Western, the immigrants tended to maintain their
own Old World
ethnic identity, especially in their Churches.
The first Orthodox Churches in North America were under the common
jurisdiction of the patriarch in Moscow regardless of
ethnicity. But after
the Bolshevik revolution, many ethnic groups became suspicious of the
communist influence and formed their own American diocese. To this
day, there are numerous ethnic jurisdictions in North America,
yet the
Orthodox faith remains the same
regardless of ethnicity.
The Church which brought
the Bible
to all of Christianity and Orthodoxy
to North America is now bringing North America to Orthodoxy.
People
devoted to Christ but distressed and frustrated by the
directions being
taken in both Roman Catholic and Protestant
circles, and desiring a
more full worship and spiritual
life, are now
turning to the
changeless
Orthodox
Church. It only makes sense that the Church from which the
Bible came would be the same
Church where the faith
described in the
Bible could be lived out and preserved.
Excerpted from
"What on Earth is the Orthodox Church?"
Conciliar Press,
1996.
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