Quote: (02-18-2016 09:30 PM)Apollo21 Wrote:
That's interesting. I recently met a girl who is Orthodox(Ukraine).
I was surprised to learn that it's actually the Original Church of Jesus
and the Apostles. Even Christmas is celebrated on a different day(in Jan)
There probably isn't much difference except for the format of certain ceremonies.
I'm not an expert though. Just google it and call up an Orthodox Church.
The Ukrainian or Russian Orthodox Church to which the girl was referring is just one of many churches that can directly trace their lineage to Jesus and the twelve apostles. They consist of the Eastern Orthodoox Churches, the Oriental Orthodox Churches, the Assyrian Church of the East, and the Catholic Churches (yes there are more than one). The groups of churches have schismed, that is, become separated from one another over issues of church doctrine. What really sets these churches apart from Protestant churches in addition to issue of doctrine is the issue of apostolic succession which means that every bishop within these churches can trace his authority back through a line of bishops to the Twelve Apostles.
Here's a potted history of these four groups of churches.
1. The Nestorian Heresy - creation of the Church of the East.
The first schism concerned the Nestorian heresy which concerned the divine and human natures of Christ and was condemned in the First Council of Ephesus 431 and the Council of Chalcedon twenty years later. Nestorians held that the divine and human natures of Christ were completely separate. Most of the Churches who supported the teachings of Nestorius (who at the time was the Patriarch of Constantinople) were found in what is now Syria, Iraq and Iran. This was largely due to the policy of the Persian Sassanid Empire which pressured local bishops to break ties with Christians in the Roman Empire. As a consequence these churches were anathematized from the universal Church and suppressed in areas under control of the Roman (Byzantine) Empire. The Schism was theoretically ended by a council of the Church of the East in 544 which repudiated the Nestorian doctrine but the churches never formally reunited.
In 1552 there was a schism within the Church of the East over the issue of hereditary succession of the church Patriarchs. A rival Patriarch was elected and bolstered his claim by reuniting his followers with the Catholic Church forming the Chaldean Catholic Church. The Assyrian Church of the East split again in 1964 over the issue of adopting the Gregorian Calendar in place of the Julian Calendar. The dissenters formed the Ancient Church of the East. The Assyrian Church of the East and the Catholic Church have resolved their doctrinal differences so while they are not yet in full communion with each other, there is no reason why they cannot reunite into a single Church and there are proposals out there that they do. If reunification took place this would not make Eastern Christians "Roman Catholics" just part of the Catholic Church of which Roman Catholicism is a single rite. They would continue to have their own liturgy, religious discipline (For example married men may serve as priests in Eastern Christianity including in the Chaldean Catholic Church), feast days etc.
2. The Monophysite Heresy - Creation of the Oriental Orthodox Churches
The second great schism occurred at the previously-mentioned Council of Chalcedon (451). Again the doctrinal controversy concerned the divine and human natures of Christ, but this time the dissenters who were subsequently called Monophysites (it was meant as an insult) held that Christ has a single nature, both human and divine or in other words the polar opposite of the Nestorians. The followers Miaphysite (as they call themselves) doctrine were centred around the Sees of Alexandria and Antioch and in Armenia while their opponents were found in Rome and Constantiople. Truth be told, while the Council of Chalcedon created a great deal of friction between the different factions, they still managed to rub along together for nearly a century before the Emperor Justinian sought to suppress the Miaphysites. They probably would have disappeared from history but for the rise of Islam and the loss of Syria and Egypt by the Eastern Empire.
Today they are known as the Oriental Orthodox and there are at present six Oriental Orthodox Churches. These are the three Coptic Churches of Egypt, Ethiopia, and Eritrea, the Armenian Apostolic Church, the Syriac Orthodox Church which is found in Syria and surrounding countries, and the Malankara Syriac Orthodox Church in India. These churches are all in communion with one another meaning they recognize the validity of each others' sacraments.
Their relations with other branches of Chritianity vary. The Syriac Orthodox Church and the Roman Catholic Church have a long and complicated, but not particularly antagonistic history and probably would have reunited at some point but for the fact that the Ottoman government opposed it. Nevertheless many Syriac Orthodox did enter communion with the Catholic Church as the Syriac Catholic Church. On a formal level the churches have settled most of their doctrinal difference in the past half century and have reached an agreement permitting their laity to access the sacraments of the other church when necessary. The Syriac Orthodox Church is similar in its liturgy and other practices to the Eastern Orthodox Churches but there has been less dialogue though one has been started with the Russian Orthodox Church. Apparently there is still a hostility from some Greek Orthodox who see the Syriac Church as heretics.
The Armenian Apostolic Church also has very good relations with the Roman Catholic Church, in part because in many of its exterior symbols (such as Bishops mitres for example) the Armenian Church is closer to Western Christian practices than those of other Eastern Christian. There have been attempts to reunite the two churches since the time of the Crusades and there is an Armenian Catholic Church. Interestingly, on a parish level the laity and clergy of the two churches treat them as one even if they are hierarchically separate.
The Coptic Church which is the mother church of the Ethiopian and Eritrian Churches (they were formally part of the Coptic Church) has resolved its doctrinal differences with the Catholic Church and with the Greek Orthodox Church of Alexandria.
3. The Great Schism of 1054 - Division of the Church into Catholic and Eastern Orthodox
The last great schism was between what is now the Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Churches. It occurred in 1054 and had been preceded by a long build up of friction about various issues, mostly cultural in nature but that quickly became a matter of doctrine. The controversy which continues to this day surrounds the legitimacy of the "filioque" a short phrase added to the Nicean Creed on the authority of Pope Benedict VIII in 1014 but rejected by the Orthodox Church. This decision by Benedict also called into question the extent of the Pope's authority. Two councils were later called to try and resolve the differences between the Churches. The 2nd Council of Lyon in 1274 saw both the Byzantine Emperor and the Patriarch of Constantinople accept the filioque but popular opposition in the Eastern Church prevented the schism from being healed. At the Council of Florence in 1439 shortly before the fall of Constantinople, another agreement was reached between the Emperor, the Patriarch and other Eastern Bishops and the Western Church. As part of the agreement military aid was supposed to be sent to help the Byzantine Empire but none was forthcoming and after the fall of Constantinople the Ottomans needless to say, opposed any further attempts to promote Christian unity.
In 1595-96 at the Union of Brest, a large part of the Church of Rus - the Orthodox Church centred on Kiev formally united with the Roman Catholic church but retained its own liturgy and structure. However this was not popular with all its members and as Russia expanded at the expense of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth most people gradually reconverted to Orthodoxy. However the Ukrainian Catholic Church continued to thrive in the western parts of Ukraine that were ceded to Austria Hungary when Poland was partitioned in 1795. The Ukrainian Catholic Church was suppressed by the Soviet Union by forcibly merging it with the Orthodox Church. However after the fall of Communism it re-emerged much stronger than anyone anticipated which has strained relations between the Roman Catholic and Russian Orthodox Churches.
Relations between the Eastern Orthodox Churches the main ones of which are the Russian, Greek, Bulgarian, Romanian, Serbian, and Georgian Orthodox Churches, and the Roman Catholic Church remain frosty to this day. The exception is the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople where Patriarchs since the 1940s have been in regular dialogue with the Roman Catholic Popes.
The schism between the Eastern Orthodox and Catholic Churches seems the least likely to be healed any time soon.
Practically speaking, in western countries many Orthodox Christians end up attending Catholic Churches because Orthodox Churches are relatively few in number and also because they tend to tied to a particular ethnic group. The Catholic Church allows this. On the other hand, Eastern Orthodox Churches generally would not permit a Catholic to partake in the sacraments.