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What is the Orthodox Church?

There are about 20 Orthodox churches across the world which together form the one Orthodox Church family, all united together in the service of God.

The Orthodox Church is the original New Testament Church. A lot of other churches claim that too but we believe that only the Orthodox Church can show a living link across the centuries to the original Church because it has not at all changed the beliefs, practices and worship of those times.

The Orthodox Church takes its faith from God as revealed in the written word of the Bible and the unwritten memories, sayings, saints and prayers that together we call Holy Tradition. None of this can be left out if the Church is to be true to God and to itself.

The Orthodox Church makes its mind up about things by meeting together in special meetings called Ecumenical Councils. There have been seven of these to date with a number of other smaller councils. At these meetings, our leaders, the bishops pray to remain faithful to what Jesus Christ gave to his Church whilst asking for the Holy Spirit's help to speak to the world and show to the world God's will and life for today.

The Orthodox Church has many, many services but the most central of these is called the Divine Liturgy or the Holy Eucharist, (some other churches call this the Holy Communion or the Mass). In this service, the Church's follows Christ's command to take bread and wine as his Body and his Blood, changed by the Holy Spirit.

Orthodox worship is very colourful and uses all the 5 senses, (sight - the icons or holy pictures, hearing - singing without instruments, smell - the incense, taste - Holy Communion, touch - kissing the icons). The churches have many icons in them, many of them on a special screen with doors in front of the holy table of the altar. This screen is called an iconostasis. The icons are for us a window into heaven and a help us to show our love and relationship with Christ, his Mother and all the saints.

The Orthodox Church has many saints and they all have their own feast days on the Church's yearly calendar. In addition to Pascha (Easter) and Nativity (Christmas) there are a number of other important feasts that celebrate key events in the life, death and resurrection of Christ ... also the life of the Church. Before some of these feasts and on most Wednesdays and Fridays, Orthodox Christians fast from meat and dairy products. We do this NOT to lose weight (!) but to strengthen our will to serve God and to deepen our prayer.

The mission of the Orthodox Church is to share the love of God with all the world. We pray and work towards more and more people accepting and following Jesus Christ. We receive these new believers and disciples by baptism. At the end of time we believe that there will be a new creation and that God's friends will be resurrected in a deathless world where God will be "all in all."

I hope this has helped you to know more about the Orthodox Church.