Orthodox Christianity

Core values & worldview

If you ask an Orthodox friend what their faith is about, you may not get a list of doctrines. You are more likely to hear about the smell of incense, the midnight cry of “Christ is risen!”, a grandmother’s icon corner, or the long fasts before Easter. Orthodoxy is a faith you learn by doing and seeing as much as by reading.^•

God as Trinity. Orthodox Christians believe in one God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, as set out in the creed of Nicaea and Constantinople, which they sing at every Liturgy, without the word filioque (“and the Son”) that the Western churches added. Jesus Christ is fully God and fully human, and his resurrection is the centre of everything: Pascha (Easter) is “the feast of feasts”.^•

Salvation as healing. Orthodox tend to speak of sin less as a crime to be punished than as a sickness to be healed, and of salvation as theosis, being drawn into God’s own life. That is why the church calls itself a “hospital” and why prayer, fasting, confession and communion are seen as medicine rather than duty.^•

Tradition and the councils. Orthodox read the Bible within holy tradition: the creeds, the seven ecumenical councils from 325 to 787, the writings of the Church Fathers, the liturgy and the icons. There is no single head with authority to define doctrine; the church makes decisions in councils of bishops, and its truth is guarded, Orthodox say, by the whole people of God.^•

Mystery and humility. Orthodox theology loves to say what God is not (“apophatic” theology), and is comfortable with mystery. The sacraments are called “mysteries”. Many Orthodox are wary of over-explaining the faith, and of Western habits of defining everything.^•

Mary and the saints. The Virgin Mary is honoured as Theotokos, “God-bearer”, and the saints are a living family, present in their icons and relics. Orthodox ask the saints for their prayers, celebrate their feasts, and often feel especially close to a patron saint.^•

Daily life & customs

Going to church. The main Sunday service is the Divine Liturgy, usually that of St John Chrysostom, often preceded by a Saturday-evening Vigil. Traditionally congregants stand, though many churches outside Eastern Europe now have pews. On arriving, people buy and light thin beeswax candles and kiss the icons. In Slavic churches women often cover their heads. The iconostasis, a screen of icons, separates the altar from the nave, and the singing goes on almost without pause.^•

Icons at home. Many homes have an “icon corner”, traditionally facing east, with a lamp, a few icons and perhaps holy water or blessed palms. Families pray there, and many cross themselves (right to left, with three fingers joined) when passing a church.^•

Fasting. Orthodox fasting is strict and frequent: traditionally no meat, dairy, eggs, and often fish, wine and olive oil, on most Wednesdays and Fridays and during four seasons, Great Lent before Pascha, the Nativity fast before Christmas, the Apostles’ fast and the Dormition fast in August. For the most observant this adds up to something like half the year; in practice many people keep part of it, and the sick, children and travellers are let off. Bakeries and restaurants in Greece, Cyprus and Ethiopia offer special “fasting” menus.^•

Pascha. The great feast begins near midnight on Holy Saturday. The church is dark; the priest brings out a single flame, which spreads candle to candle, and the people process outside and then hear the cry “Christ is risen!”, answering “Truly he is risen!” At the end, St John Chrysostom’s Easter sermon is read. Families then break the fast with red eggs, Easter breads and lamb. For forty days afterwards Orthodox greet each other with the Paschal greeting.^•

The calendar. Pascha is calculated by the old Julian calendar, so it usually falls after Western Easter, though sometimes on the same day. The Russian, Serbian, Georgian and Jerusalem churches keep the Julian calendar for fixed feasts too, which is why their Christmas falls on 7 January; the Greek, Romanian, Bulgarian churches and Constantinople use a revised calendar and celebrate it on 25 December.^•

Life events. Babies are baptised by full immersion, three times, and immediately chrismated (confirmed) and given communion, so even infants receive. Weddings feature crowns held over the couple’s heads and a dance around the table. Priests may marry before ordination, so a parish priest often has a wife and children, though bishops are chosen from monks. Divorce and remarriage are permitted in limited circumstances, with a more penitential service. At funerals the coffin is often open, and memorial services with boiled wheat (koliva) follow at forty days and on anniversaries. Many people celebrate their saint’s name day more than their birthday.^•

Wounds & sensitivities

The Fourth Crusade and the West. For many Orthodox, especially Greeks, the sack of Constantinople in 1204 is the moment when Western Christians showed what they thought of the East. Combined with centuries of Catholic missionary pressure in Eastern Europe, it left a lasting wariness of Rome and of the West.^•

The Fall of the City. 1453 is mourned, and the conversion of Hagia Sophia back into a mosque in 2020 reopened the wound. The Ecumenical Patriarchate in Istanbul serves a Greek community that has shrunk to a few thousand, and its theological school on the island of Halki has been closed since 1971.^•

Persecution and genocide. Orthodox families across the former Soviet bloc remember priests shot, churches blown up and faith passed on in secret. Armenians, Assyrians and Greeks remember the massacres and expulsions of the last Ottoman years, above all the Armenian Genocide. Copts in Egypt and Christians in Syria and Iraq have faced deadly attacks within living memory.^•

Being treated as “Russian”. Many Orthodox, Greeks, Georgians, Romanians, Ukrainians, Arabs and Ethiopians among them, are tired of their faith being equated with Russia or the Kremlin, and Orthodox who oppose the war against Ukraine resent being lumped in with the Moscow Patriarchate’s support for it.^•

The Ukrainian church dispute. The independence of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine and the war have set Orthodox against Orthodox, with families and parishes split. Approach it gently, and don’t assume which side someone is on.^•

Modern attitudes

Faith as belonging. In much of Eastern Europe, being Orthodox is tied to being Greek, Serbian, Romanian or Russian. Pew found large majorities in these countries said being Orthodox was important to being “truly” part of the nation, even among people who rarely attend church or doubt doctrines.^•

Conservative on social issues. Orthodox churches are generally conservative on sexuality, gender and family, and surveys in Orthodox-majority countries show strong opposition to same-sex marriage. In the diaspora, especially in North America and Western Europe, views are more varied, and converts often bring a more intense, deliberate piety.^•

Church and state. Orthodoxy inherited from Byzantium the ideal of symphonia, a harmony between church and state. Critics say this has made churches too close to governments, from the Russian church’s support for the Kremlin and the war against Ukraine to nationalist clergy in the Balkans; many Orthodox theologians in the diaspora and in Ukraine have publicly opposed that.^•

A shrinking share, a deepening faith. The Orthodox share of the world’s Christians has fallen from about 20% a century ago to about 12%, because populations in Orthodox countries are ageing while Christianity grows in Africa and elsewhere. Yet in Ethiopia, Romania and Georgia, religion remains vital, and Orthodoxy attracts a small but steady stream of converts in the West.^•

Ecology. Under Patriarch Bartholomew, the “Green Patriarch”, Orthodoxy has developed a strong teaching on care for creation, and 1 September, the start of the church year, is a day of prayer for the environment.^•

Not all Orthodox Christians are the same

Eastern and Oriental Orthodox. The biggest distinction is between the Eastern Orthodox (Greek, Russian, Serbian, Romanian, Bulgarian, Georgian, Antiochian and others), who accept seven ecumenical councils, and the Oriental Orthodox (Coptic, Ethiopian, Eritrean, Armenian, Syriac and Malankara Indian), who accept only the first three and parted ways after Chalcedon in 451. They are not in communion, and their liturgies, languages and calendars differ, but they share icons, fasting, monasticism and a deep sense of antiquity. Pew counts the Oriental churches as roughly a fifth of all Orthodox.^•

Greek and Slavic, Arab and African. A Greek parish feels very different from a Russian one: Byzantine chant against Russian choral harmony, Greek against Church Slavonic. Arabic-speaking Orthodox in Syria, Lebanon and Palestine trace their faith to Antioch and Jerusalem and resent being called converts. Ethiopian Orthodoxy, with its own scriptures, the Ge’ez language, Saturday Sabbath customs and long fasts, is a world of its own.^•

Cradle Orthodox and converts. In America, Britain and Australia, most Orthodox are descendants of immigrants, but converts, many of them former Protestants, now make up a significant share of some parishes and are often among the most devout.^•

Practising and cultural. Many people in Russia, Greece or Serbia call themselves Orthodox, keep Easter and baptise their children, but rarely go to church or keep the fasts. Others, especially those touched by monastic life on Athos or in Russian monasteries, live a demanding rhythm of prayer and fasting.^•

Ukraine and Russia. In Ukraine, Orthodox are divided between the independent Orthodox Church of Ukraine and the Ukrainian Orthodox Church historically tied to Moscow, and many simply say they are “just Orthodox”. Some Russian Orthodox, inside and outside Russia, have opposed the war at personal cost.^•

Meeting someone

Conversation starters

• Pascha. Ask how their family celebrates: the midnight service, cracking red eggs, the first meal after Lent. If you know them well, greeting them with “Christ is risen!” at Easter will usually delight them.
• Their name day. Many Orthodox celebrate the feast of their namesake saint, and may be pleased you asked.
• Food and fasting. Lenten recipes, Christmas Eve dishes and the joys of breaking the fast are warm topics, and Orthodox fasting cuisine is genuinely interesting.
• Pilgrimages and monasteries. Many have visited Athos, Jerusalem, Lalibela, Kyiv’s Cave Monastery or a local monastery, and have stories.

Topics to approach carefully

• Russia, Ukraine and the church split. Don’t assume an Orthodox person supports or opposes either church or government; the war has divided families and parishes.^•
  • The Orthodox Church in Ukraine: A Century of Separation — Nicholas E. Denysenko, Northern Illinois University Press (2018)
  • The Russo-Ukrainian War: The Return of History — Serhii Plokhy, W. W. Norton (2023)
• 1204, 1453 and Hagia Sophia. These are real wounds for Greeks and many others. Joking about “the Fall” or about Istanbul versus Constantinople can sting.
• Genocides and persecution. For Armenians, Assyrians, Greeks from Anatolia and Copts, these are family history.
• Communion. Orthodox communion is normally only for Orthodox Christians who have prepared by fasting and confession. As a guest, you can come forward at the end of the Liturgy for the blessed bread (antidoron) that is offered to all.^•
  • The Orthodox Church — Timothy Ware, Penguin (1993)

Common misconceptions

• “Orthodox means Russian.” Russians are the largest group, but Orthodox include Greeks, Romanians, Serbs, Georgians, Ukrainians, Arabs, Ethiopians, Copts, Armenians, Indians and many converts worldwide.^•
  • Orthodox Christianity in the 21st Century — Pew Research Center, Pew Research Center (2017)
• “Orthodoxy is Catholicism without the pope.” The two share much, but Orthodox differ in theology (the filioque, purgatory, original sin), in the role of councils, in married clergy and in a whole spiritual style; they see Rome as having left them, not the reverse.^•
  • The Orthodox Church — Timothy Ware, Penguin (1993)
• “They worship icons.” Orthodox venerate icons, honouring the person shown, while worship is given to God alone, a distinction defined in 787.^•
  • Imago Dei: The Byzantine Apologia for Icons — Jaroslav Pelikan, Princeton University Press (1990)
  • The Orthodox Church — Timothy Ware, Penguin (1993)
• “Orthodox Christmas is a different Christmas.” It is the same 25 December, counted on the Julian calendar, which currently runs 13 days behind.^•
  • The Orthodox Church — Timothy Ware, Penguin (1993)
• “Orthodox Christians are connected to Orthodox Judaism.” The word just means “right belief”; the two are unrelated.
• “All Orthodox churches are one church with one head.” Orthodoxy is a family of self-governing churches; the Ecumenical Patriarch has a primacy of honour, not command, and the Oriental Orthodox are a separate family.^•
  • The Orthodox Church — Timothy Ware, Penguin (1993)
  • An Introduction to the Christian Orthodox Churches — John Binns, Cambridge University Press (2002)