If you desire to follow Jesus Christ, where do you practically find the Orthodox Church?
Here is the short answer:
To find the Orthodox Church, connect with a local Orthodox church near where you live. Receive guidance from the Orthodox priest, who cares for the church. The priest serves under the authority an Orthodox bishop, the spiritual shepherd responsible for overseeing all the churches in his geographic area (called a diocese). Within the local church, you will find the whole Mystery of the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church. A priest should instruct you, guide you, and care for your soul as a fatherly physician.
In such a case that you do not have a local Orthodox church near you, arrangements can be made with a priest to guide you remotely, as necessary.
Here is a longer explanation:
The Holy Apostles consecrated bishops to oversee the many local churches they founded and to serve as their successors. After a bishop falls asleep in the Lord at the end of his earthly life, another man is chosen to succeed the previous bishop. The man is consecrated a bishop by other bishops, who possess Apostolic succession, an unbroken 2,000 year old historical line of bishops back to the Apostles. The requirements for a bishop’s Apostolic succession is more than an unbroken genealogy originating with the Apostles. For legitimate Apostolic succession, a bishop must also united to the Holy Orthodox Church, the same Church of the Apostles, and hold to the same Faith of the Apostles. As the Orthodox bishops possess Apostolic succession, so do the Orthodox priests ordained by the bishops.
In the early Church, as the Gospel of Jesus Christ spread throughout the world, those men and woman who became Christians formed church communities in their particular cities. In each city, a bishop led the church. All the bishops of the Church were in communion with one another as brothers and all the individual churches in the various cities were all in communion, meaning that they were one Church. So, the Church as a whole was a communion of local churches scattered throughout the world.
After the Church emerged from persecution to become officially recognized by the Roman Empire, the churches of five cities were elevated as leading “mother churches” in the world. These five senior churches, called Patriarchates, included the churches of
(1) Rome
(2) Constantinople (called New Rome)
(3) Alexandria in Egypt,
(4) Antioch of Syria, and
(5) Jerusalem.
These five senior churches, called Patriarchates, were governed independently by a synod, a brotherhood of bishops. The synod of each Patriarchate was led by an elder brother, called a Patriarch, who was elected (and could be removed) by his brother bishops. Each Patriarchate was called autocephalous, meaning that it was independently governed so that no other church could interfere with its affairs. All the autocephalous churches, though self-governing, formed one Body, the Church, with one Head, Jesus Christ. United in the Holy Spirit, they held firmly to their common Apostolic Faith, each in its own geographic region. Some churches (called autonomous) in the world are mostly self-governing, but still are connected to a Patriachate.
Originally, churches were established on the basis of geography. Still today, an Orthodox Christian in Syria belongs by default to the Church of Antioch (also called the Antiochian Orthodox Church and the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Antioch and All the East). Likewise, an Orthodox Christian in Russia belongs to the Russian Orthodox Church (Patriarchate of Moscow), one in Finland belongs to the Orthodox Church of Finland, and an Orthodox person in Japan belongs to the Orthodox Church of Japan. Most properly, only one Orthodox jurisdiction exists in a particular geographic location. Having said that, realize that due to the spread of the Gospel and immigration outside of the older Orthodox Christian lands, one finds overlapping jurisdictions in a single place. For example, in the West, many different Orthodox jurisdictions including Greek, Antiochian, Russian, Romanian, Serbian, and others coexist in many cities together. Although the various jurisdictions reflect different ethnicities and cultures rooted in their home countries, they are all in communion together as One Church.
Tragically, since the earliest times of Church history, members of the Church, including bishops and priests along with lay people who followed them, have fallen into heresy and schism, separating themselves from the Orthodox Church to form new religious groups. If an Orthodox bishop or priest decides to become a heretic (choosing to reject the teachings of the Church) and a schismatic (breaking from the Orthodox Church), then that bishop no longer possesses Apostolic succession. He has cut himself off from the Church, as a dead branch of a living tree. Since Jesus Christ alone possess the authority to found a Church and He only founded one Church upon the Apostles, none of the groups that have separated from the Orthodox Church or the people in those communions can properly be called orthodox, catholic, or the Church.
Perhaps the most significant schisms to occur in Church history include the following:
- The Nestorian Schism, which separated the Assyrian Orthodox Church (also called the Church of the East) in AD 431.
- The Monophysite Schism, which separated the so-called Oriental Orthodox: Coptic Orthodox, Indian Orthodox, Ethiopian Orthodox, Eritrean Orthodox, and Armenian Orthodox in AD 451.
- The Great Schism, which separated the Orthodox Patriarchate of Rome and Western Europe with it, thereby creating the so-called Roman Catholic Church in AD 1054. (The city of Rome had not been the capital of the Roman Empire or even within the boundaries of the Empire for centuries). Five hundred years after Roman Catholicism began, the Protestants who rejected Roman Catholicism initiated a movement (the Protestant Reformation) that has created thousands of different communions, all the various denominations and independent local communities outside of communion with the Holy Orthodox Church.
The Orthodox Church is the Church of Jesus Christ, which is the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church. Sometimes, it is called the Eastern Orthodox Church or the Greek Orthodox Church. Although Rome fell into schism centuries ago, the other ancient Patriarchates of Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem still exist alongside their sister churches, from the Church of Russia (Patriarchate of Moscow) to the Church of Japan. Find a local Orthodox church under the authority of an Orthodox bishop and connect with an Orthodox priest to instruct, guide, and care for you. There you will find the Mystery of the Church.
Text copyright © 2017 by Fr. Symeon D. S. Kees