What is the Orthodox Church?

[Arduinna]

Can someone explain to me what the orthodox church is? And how are say the Greek Orthodox different from the other Orthodox churches??

Is a blending of Catholocism and cultural beliefs?

[DaryLLL]

One shot at an answer.

It goes back to Constantine, 4th cent CE. He moved the capital of the Roman Empire to the east (better situated for trade) and named the city after himself, Constantinopolis.

At one time, there were 2 competing popes of the church (and a gnostic pope of the non-orthodox church system as well).

Whole there are religious differences, I think the split was more political.

[Arduinna]

What are the differences between the modern Orthodox churches.

[Bekka]

nak

I studied Russian Orthodoxy in some detail in college...in 1054 was a major schism that produced eastern Orthodoxy centered in Constantinople and western Christianity that recognized the pope. While there were several reasons for the schism, a lot of it had to do with icons and their place in worship (whether they qualified as "graven images"). The eastern church had refined iconography to a religious art, and the western church very much believed the people were worshipping pictures.

As far as I know, the major differences in the churches are that each is done it its own language, i.e., Russian Orthodoxy (Pravoslavie) is performed in Old Church Slavonic, which is an old Slavic language. I don't know about Greek, but I know there are Greek Orthodox, Bulgarian Orthodox, etc.

They don't recognize the Pope in Rome, but I think the cohesiveness of the Orthodox church fell when Constantinople did (became Istanbul, now a Turkish, mostly Muslim city, I believe). That's when each of the national church groups took on their own leadership etc.

Russian history, identity and culture developed parallel to the Russian Orthodox church--i.e., the national church. I've read it's similar with Greek, for example.

To make this all very interesting and bring it into perspective, I attended a catholic mass when I was doing comparative analysis, and their little spiritual thought for the day was to give information about the icon used in the Orthodox church and how it could be a focus for spiritual devotional time ...

[Arduinna]

Thanks Bekka. So there is one organizing body (not sure how to say that) for all the different Orthodox Churches but the biggest difference is the language they use in worship.

ok, interesting.

[Bekka]

yes, I think that's right.

Although it may be like Baptist isn't always equivalent. I don't know about the highest level of church leadership, i.e., who they recognize.

[kama'aina mama]

I want to say some/ all the Orthodox churches follow a different worship calender than the Roman church. They don't use the Gregorian Calender, they use an older one. I remember a woman I worked with a number of years ago was Orthodox (don't know any more than that, she was from Bosnia if that means anything) and she celebrated Easter a few weeks after I did.

[Arduinna]

interesting Kama, so do they follow the Julian calendar or a different one?

hmmmmm

[merpk]

This is totally off the top of my head, could be wrong, but I think their calendar is more lunar. Heard once that Orthodox Easter always always falls in or around Passover. Which goes by the Jewish/lunar calendar.

Or something along those lines.

[kama'aina mama]

If they do it that way merpk, it would make a lot of sense. I have never understood the rather pagan seeming way that Easter is designated. How do you know when Passover is?

[DaryLLL]

Dating Easter Sunday--Paschal full moons, ecclesiastical full moons, Gregorian and Julian calendars, leap yrs, etc.

You'd need a calculator!

http://www.assa.org.au/edm.html#List20

or

http://quasar.as.utexas.edu/BillInfo...Calendars.html

A whole lot of mathematical calculations, followed by:

If you pay attention to the dates of Easter and Passover from year to year, you will notice that although they usually fall within a week or so of each other, on occasion Passover falls about a month after (Gregorian) Easter. At the present time, this happens in in the 3rd, 11th, and 14th years of the Metonoic Cycle (i.e., when the Golden Number equals 3, 11, or 14). The reason for this discrepancy is the fact that although the Metonic Cycle is very good, it is not perfect (as we've seen in this course). In particular, it is a little off if you use it to predict the length of the tropical year. So, over the centuries the date of the vernal equinox, as predicted by the Metonic Cycle, has been drifting to later and later dates. So, the rule for Passover, which was originally intended to track the vernal equinox, has gotten a few days off. In ancient times this was never a problem since Passover was set by actual observations of the Moon and of the vernal equinox. However, after Hillel II standardized the Hebrew calendar in the 4th century, actual observations of celestial events no longer played a part in the determination of the date of Passover. The Gregorian calendar reform of 1582 brought the Western Church back into conformity with astronomical events, hence the discrepancy.

Similarly, you will notice that in many years Gregorian Easter (the one marked on all calendars) differs from Julian (Orthodox) Easter, sometimes by a week, sometimes by a month. Again, this is due to the different rules of calculation. A major difference is that Orthodox Easter uses the old Julian calendar for calculation, and the date of the Vernal Equinox is slipping later and later on the Julian calendar relative to the Gregorian calendar (and to astronomical fact). Also, the date of Paschal Full Moon for the Julian calculation is about 4 days later than that for the Gregorian calculation. At present, in 5 out of 19 years in the Metonic Cycle--the years when the Golden Number equals 3, 8, 11, 14 and 19--Orthodox Easter occurs a month after Gregorian Easter. In three of these years, Passover also falls a month after Gregorian Easter (see above).

If you are still with me, this year the orthodox and catholic Easters fell on the same date. Just coincidently.

[asherah]

OT:
I've been reading a whopping two-volume biography of the Medicis.
It spans the time of the fall of Constantinople...

And at one point.. there were actually THREE popes.

They ALL got deposed during inter-city fighting in Italy.. and a new one was appointed.

[kama'aina mama]

Go Darylll! Thank you.

[Arduinna]

very interesting.

anyone have anything else to share?

[DaryLLL]

Hey Ard, this thread is exactly one year old. You can't fool me!

[Arduinna]

:LOL I wasn't trying to fool anyone

I noticed we had another thread about Greek Orthodox and thought I could attract some action here.

[Unagidon]

Here is a link that lays out the basic differences in excruciating detail. (But note the cute little dig at the end).

http://www.ocf.org/OrthodoxPage/reading/ortho_cath.html

Theologically the Roman Church is pretty close to the others. The main theological differences are in the subtle idea of whether the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father (Orthodox) or the Father and the Son (Catholic) and the concept of the Immaculate Conception of Mary, which is rejected by the Orthodox Church. The Orthodox don’t like the idea of papal infallibility in that they think that big decisions need to be decided in a synod. The stuff about icons, vestments, and even married priests is not considered relevant to the theological dispute and in fact, for the “Uniate” churches, which are former Orthodox parishes now aligned with Rome, the rites and customs are almost identical to Orthodox rites and customs down to married priests.

On the other hand, there is a lot of history between the two that will be harder to overcome than the theology. Greeks blame Rome for the sack of Constantinople in the 13th century, which they feel so weakened the Byzantine state that it never recovered. Russians are suspicious of Catholics through their historical relations with Poland (especially), where Poles established Uniate churches in any formerly Orthodox areas (such as western Ukraine and Byelorussia) that they controlled.

There is a commission that has been set up to try to bring the churches into communion. Right now they are not, which means that Catholics can’t take Communion at Orthodox Churches and vice versa. But it could come.

Interestingly, there is also a movement for the Anglican Church to join the Orthodox churches as an Orthodox congregation.

[Arduinna]

Thanks for the link, very interesting.

[Persephone]

Well, I'm glad this thread was brought up, I was wondering this exact thing yesterday!

[applejuice]

Originally Posted by DaryLLL

Dating Easter Sunday--Paschal full moons, ....If you are still with me, this year the orthodox and catholic Easters fell on the same date. Just coincidently.

Yes, and this year they do not.

I was raised Catholic, converted to Judaism and teach now in a Greek Orthodox Church School...I love this place!!

The Western Easter is the first Sunday of the first full moon after the Vernal Equinox. (Sounds kind of pagan to me, JMHO)

The Eastern/Orthodox Easter is the first Sunday after the Jewish Passover Festival, the idea being that Jesus celebrated the Passover Seder before his cruxifixion, being the observant Jew that he was...

-or-

As my Orthodox teaching partner said to me,"He had to eat before they could kill him...."