The last time I wrote about Orthodox Christianity was earlier this month when I discussed the Baptism of Christ in the river Jordan. The weather was unusually warm for January, and now it seems I’ve come full circle since it’s the end of the month, it’s another warm spell, and I’ve attended another presentation on Orthodox Christianity. The location is the same: Sts. Constantine & Helen Greek Orthodox Church at 11025 South Roberts Road in Palos Park, Illinois. On January 31, 2012, I attended a class presentation at the church titled “Road to Orthodoxy”, which is intended to introduce non-Orthodox to the basics of Orthodox Christianity. The presentation gave me a very good overview to compare and contrast what is taught in Eastern Orthodox Christianity with the teachings of Roman Catholic Christianity. You may recall an earlier article where I did so in comparing Catholic & Lutheran teachings. I picked that topic because the Lutherans are a direct offshoot of Catholics and thus the easiest type of protestant church to profile. Now it’s time to head to look in the opposite direction and consider the roots of the Catholic faith with our closest Orthodox cousin – the Greek Orthodox Church. Many of our oldest Christian traditions originate from the Greeks – even the word Catholic itself is from the Greek word καθολικός (katholikos), which means "universal”. Greek influence in Christianity is all around us in Chicago, though we often don’t even realize it. Here in the United States, for example, Orthodox Christians are less than 1% of Christians in America. So why all the focus on Greek Orthodox traditions? Let’s take a look.
Worldwide, there is quite a different Christian perspective than we find here in northeastern Illinois. Orthodox Christianity is the second largest Christian community on earth, making up over 300 million followers (Protestants all together outnumber Orthodox worldwide, but protestant churches are not in communion with each other and have completely different doctrines – the largest Protestant denomination, the World Methodist Council, only has 75 million followers)
For the first millennium of Christianity, virtually all Christian churches were in communion with one another. Orthodox Christianity became a distinct entity when Eastern and Western Christianity formerly split in 1054 A.D. The western branch of the faith became the Catholic Church, and the eastern branch became the Orthodox. There are two main traditions in Orthodoxy: Eastern Orthodox Churches and Oriental Orthodox Churches. Within eastern orthodoxy, they are further sub-divided into denominations based on national origin (Greek Orthodox Church, Russian Orthodox Church, Serbian Orthodox Church, etc.), but unlike Protestantism, all these denominations have a unified doctrine and are united under one voice. Anyone raised Catholic can probably identify with Orthodox Christianity more than any other Christian denomination because Orthodox Christianity maintains much of the same theology and outlook that Catholics have held for centuries. Just like Catholics, Orthodox Christians can trace their bishops back to the original 12 apostles through a direct line of succession from the laying of hands passing down ordinations from one person to the next. Both the Orthodox Church and Catholic Church accurately describe themselves as one, holy, Catholic, and apostolic church. In fact, Orthodox claim to be the “original” church started by Jesus Christ himself in 33 A.D. (The Catholic Church also sees itself as the original Christian faith) Orthodox believe all other Christian churches – including the Catholic Church – are offshoots of their faith.
A Catholic will have little trouble understanding the basics of the Orthodoxy because it is the same as the Catholic Church. For example, the Orthodox have many of the same holy days of obligation, feast days, saints, seven sacraments, the Nicene Creed (profession of faith), canon law, ecumenical councils, earth Church fathers, Biblical scriptures, monks, nuns, and the ordained ministers are priests and addressed as “Father”. The Orthodox Church agrees with the Catholic Church when it comes to baptizing infants, but unlike Catholics, they also administer communion and confirmation to infants. In fact, many of the Christian traditions that our protestant friends assume are wholly “Catholic” doctrines (for example, the veneration of Mary as Mother of God, and the belief that the wine and bread at communion literally become the body and blood of Jesus), are actually shared by Orthodox and originated in early Christianity, so they are more accurately described as “non-Protestant doctrines” and are accepted by over 2/3rds of Christians worldwide.
The Orthodox equivalent of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago is the Greek Orthodox Metropolis of Chicago. Since the Orthodox are scattered more in America than Catholics, their archdiocese is headquartered in the city of Chicago but covers much of the Midwest, overseeing 34 parishes in Illinois, with another 24 parishes in Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, northern Indiana, and eastern Missouri. His Eminence Archbishop Iakovos, Metropolitan of Chicago, is the Greek Orthodox equivalent of His Eminence Cardinal Francis George (just as Cardinal George does not oversee all Catholics in the Chicago area, just the Roman Catholics in Cook and Lake county, the Metropolitan does not oversee ALL Orthodox Christians in the Chicago area, but just the largest share of them).
So what are some differences between Orthodox and Catholics? Much of them are cultural and stylistic differences that have become magnified as the two Christian traditions have remained separated over the last 1000 years. For example, in Orthodox Christianity, married men may become priests, but priests may not become married men. The Orthodox Church agrees with the Catholic Church in having a singular head to oversee the church, but disagrees with Catholics that the Pope is more powerful than other bishops and infallible. (in fact, the doctrine of Papal Infallibility at the First Vatican Council in the 1870s is one of the reasons reunion with the Orthodox is now more difficult) However, they do not dismiss the papal office as meaningless like some Protestants. Orthodox recognize the Pope’s historic importance to Christianity as the bishop of Rome, and see him as the “patriarch” of western or Latin-rite Christianity (though he also has some eastern Christians under his jurisdiction). In short, rather than see him as head of the universal church and vicar of Christ, they believe the top bishop in Christianity should be considered “first among equals” and merely serve as the spokesman for Christianity.
Perhaps the biggest difference between Roman Catholics and Greek Orthodox is their outlook and how they communicate with God, especially their worship style. These differences developed long before they even formally separated, as cultural differences developed in Byzantium churches in the east and latin churches in the western part of the Roman empire. Orthodox churches tend to be more mystical and contemplative, reflecting on the nature of god, self-control, aspiring to sainthood, and meditating, whereas Catholic and Protestant tend to be more formal and legalistic, focusing on memorizing prayers, defining dogma, learning about the life of Jesus, and so on. A good example is Sts. Constantine & Helen Greek Orthodox Church introduced me to the teachings of St. Gregory Palamas (a post-schism saint, so he is probably not a saint in the Roman Catholic Church), who taught “hesychast spirituality” in the 1300’s and the concept of prayer originating from the heart. I had never heard this concept come up in Roman Catholicism. By contrast, Catholic devotions that meditate on Jesus’ agony and suffering – like the sorrowful mysteries of the rosary – have never been a part of Orthodox Christianity.
One large difference is the traditional language used in the churches. Since Orthodox Churches come from a tradition of using Greek rather than Latin, they frequently use different terminology than Catholics or Protestants. Easter is called Pascha, Confirmation is called Chrismation (after Chrism, the holy oil used to anoint people with the gift of the Holy Spirit), the Virgin Mary is called the Holy Theotokos (which literally means “God Bearer” in Greek, since she gave birth to the Messiah), and so on. Even English words are sometimes used differently – the seven sacraments in Orthodoxy are frequently called “the seven sacred mysteries”. Also, since Orthodox Christians split with Catholicism prior to the adoption of the Gregorian calendar, they often celebrate the same feast days on different days than Roman Catholics, a notable example being Easter Sunday.
Perhaps the biggest cultural divide is what goes on inside the Church itself. A Greek Orthodox Divine Liturgy is very different from a Roman Catholic Mass, even though on paper they use the same structure and many of the same prayers. The difference is how these actions are carried out. Orthodox Christians have much more elaborate ceremonies involving sprinkling incense, writing and venerating icons, kissing these icons during the service, placing holy relics of saints around the church, and so on. (while icons are rarely used in Roman Catholicism, they are an extremely important part of Orthodox tradition, including a feast day dedicated to when Christianity declared it was okay to venerate icons of saints and stopped people from destroy icons. The reverse might be said of prayer beads – they are very integral to Catholic worship and developed into the rosary, but the Orthodox equivalent – a prayer rope called the chotki – is not used very often) Services are always chanted instead of spoken, except when it comes to homilies and some bible readings. Church buildings are rather distinct from Catholic or Protestant, consisting of a wall called an iconostasis that separates the alter from the congregation, royal doors that the priest, deacons, altar boys, etc. enter and exit constantly during the service, a sanctuary for the chalice, horos hanging from the ceiling, and a dome with the painting of Jesus hovering over the congregation. Bishops wear crowns and husbands and wives are crowned during a marriage ceremony. Crucifixes are always flat and never three dimensional, but are very ornate and show Jesus crucified on three beams instead of two. Ordained men have a tendency to grow beards and wear elaborate vestments with numerous elements in the clothes not found in Catholicism, such as a stcharion, epitracthelion, phelonion, and epimanika. The sign of the cross is also done slightly differently (reverse direction from left shoulder to right shoulder, and the fingers placed differently), and is done during the service much more often than it would be in a Roman Catholic service.
Many of these traditions are available to Catholics at eastern-rite Catholic parishes – those churches from eastern Christianity that have reunited with Rome and maintained their Byzantine culture. However, the Orthodox Christians still make up a larger segment of eastern Christianity and eastern-rite Catholics almost always trace their origins to an Orthodox denomination such as Coptic Catholics coming from the Coptic Orthodox Church. Visiting an Orthodox Church gives Catholics a good understanding of church history and what Christianity was like in the early centuries of the faith – even in the western churches where the Roman Catholic faith was formed, they can point out that the service was originally in Greek until about the 4th century A.D.
So while you may not see a lot of Greek Orthodox Christians around, many parts of the Catholic faith owe their roots to Greek culture. I have found myself greatly intrigued by Orthodox Christianity, and I feel Chicago's Catholics are missing out by knowing little about this branch of Christianity that has a rich and beautiful tradition. It’s not everyone’s cup of tea, but as Catholics we owe it ourselves to learn about Christian traditions both east and west to fully understand the nature of the universal church that Christ started. Check it out sometime – what have you got to lose?
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