When I was in Israel and Jordan a few weeks ago on a tour, I wound up visiting several Eastern Orthodox Churches. While the Eastern Orthodox Church doesn’t get as much scrutiny, in regards to doctrine, as the Roman Catholic Church, it is rather interesting that they seem to have similar doctrines.
Today, the Eastern Orthodox Churches are dominant in Eastern Europe in countries like the Ukraine, Russia, Belarus, Greece, Serbia, Romania, and Bulgaria. There are also communities of Eastern Orthodox followers in the Middle East, namely under the Syriac Orthodox Church, including Syria, Palestine, Jordan, Iran, Iraq and Lebanon. I also remember hearing that, at least in Belarus, the Eastern Orthodox Church has considerable political clout.
Here, at the Defending Contending Blog, we see a contrast & comparison between Eastern Orthodoxy & Protestantism. And, over at Apprising Ministries,a reader tells of his experience in the Eastern Orthodox Church.
And, below, Richard Bennet, a former Roman Catholic priest discusses Eastern Orthodoxy, and it's similarities to Roman Catholicism.
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"There are also communities of Eastern Orthodox followers in the Middle East, namely under the Syriac Orthodox Church, including Syria, Palestine, Jordan, Iran, Iraq and Lebanon."
ReplyDeleteWrong. The Syriac church is part of the body of churches known as the Oriental Orthodox Church which separated from the rest of the Church around the time of the Council of Chalcedon in 451AD.
The Eastern Orthodox communities in the Middle East belong the Greek Orthodox Patriarchates of Antioch and Jerusalem (Greek being a clumsy English translation of the Arabic word "Rum" meaning Byzantine or (Eastern) Roman), not the Syriac and Armenian churches.