Welcome.
There are a few links below, so please take a few moments to browse around and enjoy your visit!

I am an Orthodox Christian.

Perhaps you have never heard of the Eastern Orthodox Church before?

What is the Eastern Orthodox Church?

The Eastern Orthodox Church is quite simply, the Church that was founded by Jesus Christ and His Apostles in the year 33 A.D. It has preserved the ancient Apostolic Faith and has continued to exist down through the ages right to today.

Orthodox Christianity is not well known in America due to the historical developments through the ages but we are the second largest Body of Christendom in the world. At the time of the Roman Empire, there were two predominant languages in use; the Greek speaking peoples of the Eastern half of the Roman Empire, and the Latin speaking peoples of the Western half of the Roman Empire.

As Rome began to fall in the West, the Eastern half of the Empire continued to flourish as Europe fell into the Dark Ages. Today it is referred to by historians as the Byzantine Empire. The Byzantines continued to preserve the literary, architechtural, and cultural skills of the Roman Empire, but centered on Christianity. They built great structures and churches like the Hagia Sophia in Constantinople and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem to name a few.

Due to differences in language and translation of the Latin speaking people's of the West, and Greek speaking peoples of the East, the Western Church's theology began to change, and this led to the Great Schism between the Western Roman Catholic Church, and the Eastern Orthodox Church, and this inevitably lead to the Protestant Reformation of the 16th century.

The Orthodox Church has never had a Reformation because it hasn't needed one. We have preserved the Ancient Apostolic Faith and Traditions and today our worship is still that of those early Christians where our main worship service dates back 1700 years and includes hymns that can be traced back to as early as around 150 A.D. It is quite possible that some of these hymns were actually used by the Apostles themselves since we find them mentioned in writings in the historical records of those early 2nd century Christians as already being in use at that time! Hymns such as the O Gladsome Light, The Great Doxology, and The Trisagion Hymn, and we also still sing the Psalms. In fact, more than 90% of our hymnography is taken straight out of the Bible. We literally sing the Bible!

Orthodox worship is patterned after the heavenly worship described in Revelation. There is a story in the Russian Primary Chronicle of how Vladimir, Prince of Kiev, while still a pagan, desired to know which was the true religion, and therefore sent his followers to visit the various countries of the world in turn.

They went first to the Moslem Bulgars of the Volga , but observing that these when they prayed gazed around them like men possessed, the Russians continued on their way dissatisfied. ‘There is no joy among them,’ they reported to Vladimir , ‘but mournfulness and a great smell; and there is nothing good about their system.’ Traveling next to Germany and Rome , they found the worship more satisfactory, but complained that here too it was without beauty. Finally they journeyed to Constantinople, and here at last, as they attended the Divine Liturgy in the great Church of the Holy Wisdom, they discovered what they desired. ‘We knew not whether we were in heaven or on earth, for surely there is no such splendour or beauty anywhere upon earth. We cannot describe it to you: only this we know, that God dwells there among men, and that their service surpasses the worship of all other places. For we cannot forget that beauty.’

I can tell you that I feel exactly like that every time I go to church! For more on Orthodox worship, Click Here.

This is just a very brief introduction to Orthodoxy. I hope you will take some time to explore all the vast resources available on the Internet to learn more about the Original Church that was founded in 33 A.D. and has continued in an unbroken chain of succession of bishops through the direct laying on of hands down through the ages, right up to today! I've included a few links below to help get you started.