WHAT IS THE ORTHODOX CHRISTIAN CHURCH

The Orthodox Christian Church, also called the “Eastern Orthodox Church”  traces its foundations to the Apostolic age and was founded by Jesus Christ on the feast of Pentecost 33 AD. 

With roughly 230 million members worldwide, Orthodoxy is second in size only to the Roman Catholic Church. 

The Orthodox Church has deep and lasting roots in Christian antiquity and is steeped in rich Biblical tradition. It has been the context of Christian living for millions of Christians for almost twenty centuries. Even today Orthodox Christianity continues to live on in most of the places mentioned in the New Testament where the Apostles first preached the Gospel. This is the Church that wrote, compiled and canonized the Holy Scriptures, that formulated the traditional doctrines of Christianity, and that has believed and lived the same faith for 2,000 years.

 The Orthodox Christian faith is that faith “handed once to the saints” (Jude 3), passed on to the apostles by Jesus Christ, and then handed down from one generation to the next within the Church, without adding anything or taking anything away.

The purpose of Orthodox Christianity is the salvation of every human person, uniting us to Christ in the Church, transforming us in holiness, and giving us eternal life. This is the Gospel, the good news, that Jesus is the Messiah, that He rose from the dead, and that we can be saved as a result.