An introduction to

Orthodox Christianity
A BRIEF OVERVIEW

[email protected] Copyright: Melangell Roe-Stevens Smith 2017

 Questions Addressed

❖ What is the Orthodox Church?

❖ Where does it come from?
❖ What do we believe?
❖ How do we behave?

[email protected] Copyright: Melangell Roe-Stevens Smith 2017

Orthodox Christian Church
Jesus Christ… The Orthodox Church…

DID NOT IS NOT

…come to establish a religion, belief system …a club or an institution
or code of ethics IT IS
DID …a Living Organism – the people of God who
…give us a model for living based on Gather together in his name
loving God with our very being, Share a common faith in love of God
and others as we love ourselves Affirm truth and fullness of our faith, belief &
experience
Proclaim the Good News of Christ in word and
deed

Ortho dox Christ ian

True or correct Belief Jesus Christ in whom One who strives to
complete teaching doctrine our faith is rooted live as Christ did

[email protected] Copyright: Melangell Roe-Stevens Smith 2017

Orthodox Christian Church Origins
❖ Traces its origins to Jesus
Christ and the apostles

❖ Born on day of Pentecost

50 days after Christ’s
resurrection when the
Holy Spirit descended
upon the Apostles

❖ The Apostles went

throughout the world
proclaiming the Good
News of the Risen Christ
to all who would listen

❖ Subsequently spread to
every corner of the world

[email protected] Copyright: Melangell Roe-Stevens Smith 2017

 Throughout the world Churches 1-10 are led by
Patriarchs, others are led
Orthodox Christians worldwide by Archbishops or
number approximately Metropolitans:
300,000,000 1. Church of 8. Church of
Constantinople Bulgaria (927)
now Ecumenical 9. Church of
The second largest Christian Patriarchate Georgia (466)
communion in the world! (ancient) 10. Church of Cyprus
2. Church of (434)
Alexandria 11. Church of Poland
Numerous missions, institutions (ancient) (1924)
and monasteries 3. Church of 12. Church of
Antioch Albania (1937)
(ancient) 13. Church of Czech
In UK: 4. Church of and Slovak lands
Jerusalem (1951)
530,000 Orthodox Christians (ancient) 14. Church of Sinai
5. Church of Russia 15. Church of
70 English speaking parishes (established in Finland
1589) 16. Church of Estonia
310 parishes in total 6. Church of Serbia 17. Church of Japan
(1219) 18. Church of China
The Church continues to invite people to come and 7. Church of 19. Church of
see the fullness of the faith and embrace it as their Romania (1925) Ukraine
20. Archdiocese of
own. Ohrid
[email protected] Copyright: Melangell Roe-Stevens Smith 2017
Orthodox modus operandi
❖ Purpose - to bring every human person into the love
of God
❖ Healed of their brokenness and woundedness
❖ Grow to their true potential – to become like God
❖ How?
❖ By participating in God through…
❖ Prayer
❖ Sacraments - touching God directly, experiencing His
transforming presence in us
❖ Orthodox faith - centred on the person of Jesus Christ
❖ Through His humanity we can access His divinity
❖ He was touchable – this is why Orthodoxy is very
touchable. Engaging with the mind, the heart, the soul,
the emotions, the body and all the senses
❖ Done in community, not a private way of life, as the
The Good Samaritan extension of God’s love into creation

[email protected] Copyright: Melangell Roe-Stevens Smith 2017

Baptism
❖ Baptism of adults and infants is by immersion in water three times in the name of the Trinity. It is initiation
into the Church and a sign of forgiveness of sins.

❖ Chrismation (anointing with holy oil called Chrism) follows immediately.

❖ Holy Communion follows chrismation (Orthodox babies and children are fully communicant members of
the Church).
❖ Chrism is consecrated by the Bishop of the local Church on Holy and Great
Thursday
❖ Old Chrism mixed with new, linking newly baptised to their forbears in faith.

❖ Different parts of the body are anointed with a sign of the cross.
❖ The forehead, eyes, nostrils, mouth and ears, the chest, the hands and the feet
are all anointed. The priest says the words: "The seal of the gift of the Holy Spirit"
as he makes the sign of the cross at each point.

❖ The newly baptised and chrismated Christian is a full member of the

people of God (the 'Royal Priesthood').

❖ Chrismation linked to Pentecost - the Holy Spirit which descended on the

apostles descends on the newly baptised.
[email protected] Copyright: Melangell Roe-Stevens Smith 2017
The Bible and Orthodoxy
Christian biblical canon was generally established by the 5th
century, some 600 years before the great schism.

❖ The Orthodox position about the Bible is:

❖ that the New Testament is prefigured in the Old, and the Old
Testament is fulfilled in the New.
❖ The Bible is central in the life of the Church and gives both
form and content to the Church’s liturgical and sacramental
worship, just as to its theology and spiritual life.
❖ Nothing in the Orthodox Church can be opposed to what is
revealed in the Bible.
❖ Everything in the Church must be biblical.
❖ The Bible “comes alive” and receives its proper interpretation
and significance within the life of the Church as actually lived
and experienced by the People of God.

[email protected] Copyright: Melangell Roe-Stevens Smith 2017

The Saints and Prayer

[email protected] Copyright: Melangell Roe-Stevens Smith 2017

.

Icons and prayer

❖ Existed from first century – St Luke
❖ The reverence shown to an icon is not to the icon or artwork
itself, but rather to the person or event it portrays
❖ Icons do not capture or contain the presence of God or
anyone else, not magical objects

❖ Icons are windows into heaven.

❖ There is a connection to their subject

like the photograph of a loved one. We think of them, feel almost that they are
present, maybe in our mind speak to them.

❖ A believer meditates on the person whose portrait is on the icon. In this way an icon may play a
role in enhancing the spiritual life of the believer through the imitation of the life of the person in
the icon.
❖ That’s how icons work – they bring us into the presence of the person depicted there, connect
us with them.

[email protected] Copyright: Melangell Roe-Stevens Smith 2017

Incense and prayer
❖ Exodus 30:34
And the LORD said to Moses: “Take sweet spices,
stacte and onycha and galbanum, and pure
frankincense with these sweet spices; … You shall
make of these an incense, a compound according to
the art of the perfumer, salted, pure, and holy.
❖ Psalm 141
Let my prayer be set before You as incense,
The lifting up of my hands as the evening sacrifice.
❖ Revelation 5:8
Now when He had taken the scroll, the four living
creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before
the Lamb, each having a harp, and golden bowls full
of incense, which are the prayers of the saints.

[email protected] Copyright: Melangell Roe-Stevens Smith 2017

Mary, mother of Our Lord
❖ "Filled with the Holy Spirit," St. Elizabeth cried out,
"Blessed art thou among women..." (St. Luke 1: 40-42). In
response, the Theotokos observes that "...henceforth all
generations shall call me blessed."
❖ Christ was her only child. John 19:26-27 ‘He said to His
mother, “Woman, behold your son!” Then He said to
the disciple, “Behold your mother!”
❖ We DO NOT “worship" the Virgin Mary. We "venerate"
her and show her great honour.
"We… cannot lose sight of the importance of
free will in the development and expression of ❖ We DO NOT have a doctrine of the Immaculate
her rich personality.
Conception or that she is a co-redemptor with Christ
After the Annunication, she kept the secret of
God’s plan for her; she faced misunderstanding ❖ We DO believe that the Virgin Mary is an image of the
and accusation from others… She endured the
journey to Bethlehem; she humbly prepared for
Christian goal of becoming Christ-like, of theosis.
the birth of her Child and obediently accepted ❖ Just as the Theotokos (God-bearer) gave birth to Christ in
the command to flee into Egypt. The Virgin the flesh, so we must give birth to Christ in a spiritual way.
Mary, aided by Divine Grace, carried out these
We imitate her practical spiritual life, including the purity
actions in a real world—with real effort and
and humility by which she formed her free will into perfect
sacrifice. Thus she is for us a model of many
virtues.“ Archdeacon Basil Kuretich, D.D
obedience to the Will of God, through grace.

[email protected] Copyright: Melangell Roe-Stevens Smith 2017

Summary
The Orthodox Church is…
The New Testament Church, the Church of the
Apostles, reflecting heaven on earth and acting as
hospital to humanity’s ills....

❖ ...a Church of contrasts

❖ traditional and free
❖ archaic and alive
❖ ritualistic and personally involved.
❖ ...a Church where the priceless pearl of the Gospel
is assiduously preserved.
❖ ...a Church which in shadows and silence
maintains above all the eternal values of purity,
poverty, asceticism, humility and forgiveness.

[email protected] Copyright: Melangell Roe-Stevens Smith 2017