What Do Orthodox Christians Believe?
The faith of the seven Ecumenical Councils, in plain terms.
Orthodox Christianity is the continuing life of the Church of the first millennium, holding the faith defined by the seven Ecumenical Councils and confessed in the Nicene Creed. What follows is the shape of that faith as an Orthodox Christian would state it.
God as Trinity
One God in three Persons — Father, Son and Holy Spirit — of one essence and undivided. The Creed confesses the Spirit as proceeding from the Father; Orthodoxy has never accepted the later Western addition of 'and the Son'.
Christ
Jesus Christ is fully God and fully man, one Person in two natures, without confusion or division — the definition of Chalcedon in 451. He was crucified, descended to Hades, rose bodily on the third day and trampled down death by death. The Resurrection, not the Cross alone, is the centre of the Orthodox year.
Salvation as theosis
Salvation is union with God: healing from sin and death, and participation in the divine energies. It is not a single moment but a life, begun in baptism and worked out in repentance, prayer, fasting and the sacraments.
The Church and the sacraments
- The Church is the Body of Christ, visible and one, governed conciliarly by bishops in apostolic succession.
- Baptism and chrismation, given together, including to infants.
- The Eucharist is truly the Body and Blood of Christ, the centre of every Sunday.
- Confession, marriage, ordination and holy unction complete the sacramental life.
Scripture, Tradition and icons
Scripture is read within Holy Tradition — the councils, the fathers, the liturgy, the canons and the icons. Icons are venerated, not worshipped: the honour passes to the prototype, as St Basil put it, and their use was defined at the Seventh Council in 787.
The saints and the Theotokos
The Virgin Mary is called Theotokos, God-bearer, defined at Ephesus in 431. The saints are asked to pray for us, as living members of the one Body, and their lives are read daily in the calendar.
The life it asks for
Regular prayer morning and evening, fasting on Wednesdays and Fridays and in the four seasonal fasts, confession, almsgiving, and the Liturgy each Sunday and on feast days.
Frequently asked
- Do Orthodox Christians believe in purgatory?
- No. Orthodoxy prays for the departed and speaks of a state of waiting before the Last Judgement, but rejects the Latin doctrine of purgatory as satisfaction for sin.
- Do Orthodox Christians worship icons?
- No. Icons are venerated; worship belongs to God alone. The distinction was defined dogmatically in 787.
- Do Orthodox Christians read the Bible?
- Yes — the whole Liturgy is woven from it, and the Church appoints daily Epistle and Gospel readings. The Orthodox Old Testament follows the Greek Septuagint.