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Banner lettered "Part Three: What the Orthodox Believe": a stick figure reads a book on a stand, beside an Orthodox cross, an icon of Christ on an easel, and a woman in a headscarf.

PART THREE · 8 ENTRIES

What the Orthodox Believe

  1. 1What the Orthodox Believe: The Creed in Plain WordsThe Nicene Creed of 325 and 381 is the whole Orthodox faith in a couple hundred words, and this page walks through it one article at a time, without the Western "and the Son."
  2. 2Scripture and TraditionThe Orthodox hold the Bible as the Church's own book, read aloud in its worship and understood inside its living memory, with an Old Testament taken from the Greek Septuagint.
  3. 3Salvation as Healing: Grace, Repentance, TheosisThe Orthodox speak of salvation mainly as healing and union with God, received by grace and lived out through repentance, the sacraments and a lifelong cooperation with God that the Church calls theosis.
  4. 4Mary and the SaintsThe Orthodox honor Mary as the Theotokos and ask her and the saints to pray for them, but they worship God alone.
  5. 5Icons: Windows, Not IdolsIcons are images of Christ, his mother and the saints that the Orthodox honor but never worship, because the Second Commandment forbids idols, not images, and because in Christ the invisible God became visible.
  6. 6Why Do the Orthodox Kiss Everything?The Orthodox kiss icons, the cross, the Gospel book, the priest's hand and each other because a kiss is the body's way of giving honor, and honor given to holy things passes to Christ and his saints.
  7. 7Relics: Why the Orthodox Venerate BonesThe Orthodox honor the bodies and belongings of saints because the body is a temple of the Holy Spirit that will rise again, and they build their altars over the relics of martyrs.
  8. 8What Happens After Death?The Orthodox Church teaches with confidence that Christ has defeated death, that he will come again to judge the living and the dead, that the dead will rise, and that we should pray for the departed, and it stays deliberately quiet about the details in between.