Greek Orthodox

The Greek Orthodox Church

The Greek Orthodox Church

The Greek Orthodox Church is one of the three major branches of

Christianity, which "stands in today's society as one of the communities created

by the apostles of Jesus in the region of the eastern Mediterranean, and which

spread by missionary activity throughout Eastern Europe" (Meyendorff 5).The word

orthodox comes from Greek, meaning right-believing. currently the orthodox

religion has more than 174 million followers throughout the world.

The Greek Orthodox church is autocephalous, that is, governed by its own

head bishop. The head bishops of this autocephalous church may be called

patriarch, metropolitan, or archbishop. These clergymen are much like the Pope

in that they decide church doctrine and generally make the important decision on

controversial topics.

In its doctrinal statements, "the Greek Orthodox church strongly affirms

that it holds the original Christian faith, which was common to East and West

during the first millennium of Christian history" (Meyendorff 18).

More particularly, it recognizes the authority of the ecumenical

councils at which East and West were represented together. These were the

councils of Nicaea I (325), Constantinople (381), Ephesus(431), Chalcedon(451),

Constantinople II (553), Constantinople III (680), and Nicaea II (787) (Encarta

1996). The power of teaching and guiding the community is bestowed on certain

ministries,