Orthodox Christianity
The Church That Jesus Founded
The Eastern Orthodox Church is the Church that Jesus Christ established in the Middle East 2,000 years ago.
The Christianity that we in America and Europe know is that which moved from the Middle East, where Christianity began, to the West; to Rome, Europe, and America. We know how the faith and practice in these western lands changed, leading eventually to the Protestant Reformation. Later non-denominational Churches also tried to determine from the Bible what the Ancient Church "must" have been like. Unhappily, different people reading the same Bible understand it differently, and now there are hundreds of quite different denominations of Churches in the West.
But what happened to Christianity in the East, where Jesus Christ established it? What of the Christians in Jerusalem, in Alexandria, Antioch, and Constantinople - all of the major centers of the Faith other than Rome in the earliest years of Christianity? All of them were founded directly by Jesus' Apostles, blessed to do so by Jesus Christ. Did these Christians follow along the same road as the Roman Church?
Western teachings of Purgatory, the selling of "indulgences" to get out of Purgatory, the Primacy of the Pope, the infallibility of the Pope, the subtle change of the fundamental statement of Christian Faith (the Creed) of the Early Church, none of these "innovations" of the Roman Church were ever accepted or taught in the East. There was no Protestant Reformation in the East, because there was no need for one. No one had to break away, or try to decipher from the Bible what the New Testament Church probably would have been like before the Roman Church changed it, because in the East, it hadn't changed. There was no need to resurrect the ancient Faith, because in the East, it never died!
The Church that Jesus Christ founded in the East is still alive, still filled and guided by the Holy Spirit, still maintains an unbroken, living connection straight back to the Apostles, and to Jesus Christ Himself.
We invite you to explore this Church, and to join us!
Contents:
New! Father John's blog now is available on this site! We invite you to peruse what he calls, "Ramblings of a Redneck Priest."
Father John's article, "Revitalizing Our Parish Life" is online, as is the article from Orthodox Life to which he referred us, "On Methods of Revitalizing Parish Life and Piety—A Report by Archbishop Antony of Los Angeles To the Council of Bishops, 1985"
A wonderful homily on the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, by a monk of the Holy Cross Hermitage, is now online.
By popular request: Several articles that Father John published in his monthly newsletter, Kairos, are now online:
Father John's talk on "Halloween – Orthodoxy and Secular Culture" that he presented at the 2004 Southern Missions Conference at the St. John of Shanghai & San Francisco Russian Orthodox Outside Of Russia Chapel in Mobile, Alabama
Talks from the 2003 Southern Missions Conference, which was sponsored by St. Mary of Egypt parish in Atlanta:
Living the Traditional Orthodox Life: A talk by our priest, Father John Moses.
The Saturday All-Night Vigil - An Appreciation: A talk by Father George Johnson.
Living in the Liturgical Cycles of the Church: A talk by Reader Daniel Olson.
The Stories of the Saints of America: Who are these men gazing at you from their icon above? We offer a series of brief vignettes of the stories of their lives, with links to more information about the Saints of North America.
Our church's new icons painted/written by local iconographer Sean Flaherty. Icons are "windows into heaven," and we are grateful to God to have icons prayerfully painted/written for our church.
The Monastic Heart of Orthodoxy: Many of us are unaware of the ways that Monasticism is foundational in Orthodoxy, and how our monastic fathers and mothers in the faith have been, and in many ways are today, part of the very heart of the Orthodox Church, precious to us all. In these "last days" there are very few monasteries left. We have a precious treasure in an English-speaking Russian Orthodox monastery in the beautiful hills of West Virginia.
Orthodox Links - A selection of favorite resources on the Net, including Orthodox churches, bookstores, online liturgical resources and texts, and more