8 characteristics of ORTHODOX Christianity

He Christianity is, today, the religion with the largest number of followers, being present in most of the world's nations and occupying a very relevant role in many of them. Throughout its history, Christianity has evolved and several branches have emerged from it, one of the most relevant being Orthodox Christianity. For this reason, and to get to know this branch of religion in depth, in this lesson from a Teacher we are going to analyze the main characteristics of orthodox christianity.

Index

1. Origin of Orthodox Christianity
2. Features of Orthodox Christianity
3. Churches of Orthodox Christianity in the world

He origin of orthodox Christianity we can find it in the big differences between east and west during the Middle Ages. Western Christians, from the area of ​​the Carolingian empire and the Eastern Christians, located in Byzantium, had great religious differences, since they saw Christianity in a different way.

The original idea of ​​Christianity was that of pentarchy, being the concept that all Europe had a religion similar Christian and creating something similar to what Islam was in Asia and Africa. But the differences between the West and the East were enormous and finally in 1054 the Eastern Schism, dividing Christianity into:

• Catholic Christianity in West
• Orthodox Christianity in East

The Orthodox rejected the supreme power of the Pope, considering that Christianity should not continue on that path. Therefore, they placed the headquarters of the Orthodox Church in constantinople and they were excommunicated by the Pope for not following his doctrine. From this moment the Orthodox or Byzantine Church was born, creating a new line of thought within Christianity.

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To understand orthodox Christianity we must enumerate its main characteristics, since this is what more can help us to understand this belief and allows us to observe its differences with respect to others types of christianities.

The main features of orthodox christianity are the following:

1. Is a branch of christianity, so although it separated from Catholicism, it maintains many of its defining elements. In fact, it is considered the second branch of Christianity, since it is the second with the largest number of faithful in the world.
2. They believe in the existence of one God, although they do consider that this can be represented by the Holy Trinity.
3. consider a long succession of Apostles from the time of Christ and up to the present day, being therefore the leaders of their religion the successors of these apostles.
4. It has between 250 and 300 million faithful in the world, the majority being from the eastern part of the European zone.
5. Most of the ideas of the orthodox are born from the so-called councils, being huge events in which many of its principles were marked. One of the examples are the 7 ecumenical councils.
6. Religion is made up of 16 autocephalous churches, which only recognize their own power, but at the same time are in communion with the rest of the churches, forming a complex system.
7. Churches have powers to canonize and beatify anyone, but always authorizing the rest of the churches.
8. the orthodox they do not have an exact number of sacraments, but that an enormous number of these can be carried out without control.

To end this lesson on the characteristics of orthodox Christianity we must talk about the main churches of this religion in the world, in order to understand the enormous extent that these beliefs have.

The 14 autocephalous churches that make up orthodox Christianity are the following:

• constantinople: Born in the Schism, it forms the areas of Turkey and the islands of the Aegean Sea. It has about 3 and a half million followers.
• Alexandria: Also born in the Schism, it forms the areas of Egypt and the rest of the African continent. It has about 500,000 faithful, not having much relevance on African soil.
• antioch: The patriarchs of this area are considered successors of Saint Paul and Saint Peter, being one of the churches born of the Schism. It has more than a million faithful throughout Syria, Lebanon and other small communities around the world.
• Jerusalem: The last of the churches originating from the Schism, having some 200,000 faithful in Israel, Palestine and Jordan.
• Russia: The largest of all with 140 million faithful, having a presence in Russia and many other nations that belonged to the USSR.
• Serbian: This church located in Serbia and other areas of the Balkans has about 11 million faithful.
• Romania: A church with 20 million followers throughout Romania and Moldova, Orthodox Christianity being the predominant religion in both areas.
• Bulgaria: A church located in Bulgaria with 8 million believers.
• Georgia: With five million faithful this Orthodox church is one of the oldest in the world.
• Cyprus: A church located on the island of Cyprus that has half a million faithful.
• Greece: Located in Greece, it is the fourth Orthodox church by number of faithful, with about 10 million.
• Poland: A church located in Poland with about 600,000 faithful.
• Albanian: 400,000 faithful form this church in Albania.
• czechoslovakian: This church located in the Czech Republic and Slovakia has about 75,000 faithful.

Image: The world order

If you want to read more articles similar to Orthodox Christianity: characteristics, we recommend that you enter our category of History.

Binns, J. (2010). Orthodox Christian churches (Vol. 297). AKAL Editions.

Garcia, f. L. (2012). Orthodox Christian churches. Church history yearbook, (21), 547-547.

Valerie, H. Z. (2019). Hybridity in the origins of Christianity. NetworkThink, 8(1), 1-7.