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Banner lettered "Part Seven: History and Neighbors": a domed church on a hill above a boat on the water, two stick figures shaking hands over a low fence, and two steepled churches.

PART SEVEN · 10 ENTRIES

History and Neighbors

  1. 1A Short History, Pentecost to AmericaThe Orthodox Church traces itself to Pentecost, set down its faith at seven councils between 325 and 787, came apart from Rome over centuries rather than in one year, lived for centuries under Ottoman and then Soviet rule, and reached America as a mission to Alaska in 1794.
  2. 2How the Church Is OrganizedThe Orthodox Church is a communion of self-governing churches, each made of dioceses under bishops and parishes under priests, held together by one faith, one cup, the canons, and bishops who decide together, with no single head over all of them.
  3. 3Orthodox and CatholicOrthodox and Catholics share the sacraments, the bishops, the first seven councils, and the Fathers, and differ on the papacy, the filioque, purgatory and indulgences, the Immaculate Conception, and several disciplines, which is why they don't yet share the cup.
  4. 4Orthodox and ProtestantOrthodox and Protestants share faith in Christ, the Trinity, and Scripture, and differ on Tradition, the sacraments, liturgy, the saints, and how salvation is pictured, which is why an Orthodox Sunday looks so different from the one you know.
  5. 5The Orthodox, Judaism, and IslamOrthodox worship grew from Israel's psalms and the synagogue's pattern of reading and preaching, the Church speaks of the Jewish people in the words of Romans 11, and many Orthodox Christians have lived under or beside Muslim rule for nearly fourteen centuries.
  6. 6Myth: "Liturgy means 'the work of the people'""Liturgy" means public service: work done for the people, often at one person's expense, not "the work of the people."
  7. 7Myth: "The Council of Nicaea picked the books of the Bible"Nicaea (325) dealt with Arius and the date of Pascha; none of its twenty canons lists the books of the Bible.
  8. 8Myth: "The Orthodox worship icons"Icons get honor, not worship: the Seventh Council (787) reserved worship, latreia, for God alone.
  9. 9Myth: "Orthodoxy is Catholicism without a pope"Take the pope out of Catholicism and you still don't get Orthodoxy; ask any Byzantine Catholic.
  10. 10Myth: "Orthodoxy is an ethnic church"In 1872 the Orthodox Church condemned the idea that it belongs to one nation; you don't need a Greek grandmother.