Daily Reflection

“Orthodoxy” means “right belief.” The term was initially applied to those Eastern Churches which retained the true faith notwithstanding heresies in the early centuries. Eastern Orthodox Church is one of the four divisions of the Easter Churches. Others include: the Oriental Orthodox Church; the Assyrian Church of the East; and the Eastern Catholic Church in full communion with the Church of Rome.  The Eastern Orthodox Church is a vast and multi-cultural community of believers. Best known probably for the Churches associated with the four ancient Patriarchates of Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem and to which more recently have been added Moscow and other Churches, they are the largest part of Eastern Christianity. What unifies the Orthodox Church besides its adherence to scripture and ancient Christian creeds and tradition is its acceptance of the teachings of the seven ecumenical councils of the first millennium. The Orthodox does not recognize as ecumenical any council held since Nicaea II (A.D. 787).
The origin of the separation or “schism” between the Orthodox Church and the Church of Rome is commonly associated with the year 1054 in which there was a mutual excommunication between the bishops of Rome and Constantinople. In fact, because of theological, geographical, political factors, the churches in the eastern and western parts of the Roman Empire had long been estranged and had little sympathy for one another’s distinctiveness. The separation existed especially between the Old Rome and the New Rome (Constantinople) but it also affected other churches. The involvement of the Western Christians in the Crusades, the sacking of the city of Constantinople by the Latins in 1204, the establishment of Latin Patriarchates in the West all further exacerbated existing tensions between East and West. The mutual anathemas of 1054 were jointly lifted by Pope Paul VI and Patriarch Athenagoras in 1965.
The Orthodox Church considers the Church of Rome to be in schism or possibly heresy because of its teachings on the primacy of jurisdiction of the Pope, the Bishop of Rome, and the teaching on Papal infallibility especially as formulated at Vatican I (1869-70). Eastern Orthodoxy teaches that the Church of the West unjustifiably added the filioque to the Constantinopolitan-Nicene Creed, an addition which asserts that the Holy Spirit “proceeds” from the Father and the Son. Orthodoxy, however, argues that the Holy Spirit has received far too little attention n western theology and liturgy. The Orthodox and Roman Catholic churches have over the centuries developed distinctive theological and ecclesiastical characteristics. Another hostility and misunderstanding between the churches of Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism include the tension over the existence of Eastern Catholic Churches in full communion with Rome (the so-called “Uniate” churches) and proselytism, that is, the attempt of Latins to “convert” Orthodox to Roman Catholicism especially in certain areas of the world.