The Orthodox Christian Church

The Christian Church was proclaimed to the world by Jesus Christ during the three years that He lived and preached in the Holy Land. Following His death and Resurrection, the official birthday of the Christian Faith is Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit descended upon the Apostles in Jerusalem.  This is an historical fact that is accepted universally as the  beginning of the Christian Faith throughout the Christian world. 

Since the Orthodox Christian Church is so unknown amongst most Christian denominations in the West, I would like to begin my blog on Patch by introducing the Orthodox Christian Church of the East to our Christian brothers and sisters of the Western Christian Churches as we see ourselves.  I say this because in my years of ministry in America, I find that members of Protestant denominations think that we are some branch of the Roman Catholic Church.  Our Roman Catholic friends look upon us as the schismatic branch of Catholicism that broke away from the Roman Church in 1054. 

Others look upon us as some exotic Christian sect from the East.  We are neither of the above and that is why I would like to share a series of articles about the Orthodox Christian Church as understood by those of us who have been nurtured in it. We look upon the Orthodox Christian Church as the Mother Church of Christianity. In saying this, remember now that Christ was proclaimed by The Good News in the Holy Land and later on organized Christianity took root in Anatolia Turkey.  In other words, the Christian Faith developed in the East during the first five centuries of the Christian era and then moved West to Rome and then on to the rest of the Western World. It is a religion of the East not of the West.  It did not start in Rome and then move on to the rest of the world. 

This Church was founded by our Lord Jesus Christ and established throughout the known world by His Apostles.  The early Church was one.  Jesus did not establish many different Churches and denominations.  It was the Church of Christ which He established; the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church, composed of all those people who believed in Him, were baptized and followed His moral teachings.  Later, when certain people began to change the teachings of our Lord and His Disciples by reading their own interpretations into it, the Church, through her Bishops who are the successors of the Apostles, defended the true faith against those who taught falsely.  

Those who continued to teach false doctrines became known as heretics and those who were true followers of Christ's teachings became known as Orthodox.  From the very beginning, therefore, the word Orthodox has been used to identify the true Church of Christ in opposition to those who distorted Christian truth. In our next installment, we will discuss the name of the Church. 

+Fr. Charles J. Simones, August 21, 2012.