Holy Myrrhbearers

 

Updated  01 MARCH 2001
Welcome! Click here to go directly to the top of the index!
PLEASE NOTE: If this page takes a long time to load it is usually due to the counter. If it does take a long time to load, please click on the STOP button of your browser; the page will load properly and immediately (but you will not be able to see what is your visitor number and maybe a few icons too).
If you do not belong to a specific denomination or are interested to find out with simple words what Orthodoxy's main differences are with the other denominations (non-orthodox), in particular the Roman Catholics and the Protestants, you could start reading here. For further suggestions on how to read this material, please read here.

CrossIntroductory index


CrossOrthodox books

Some interesting Orthodox books follow. Two great addresses to contact for books are:
www.light-n-life.com (in the US) and www.orthbooks.co.uk (in the UK).

CrossMailing Lists and Links
My ListBot list has unfortunately stopped working due to the changes made by ListBot. As my list is not of a business nature I have decided to keep it via direct mail. What that means simply is that if you wish to be informed of various updates and news, as and when I have some time to write something, please e-mail me with the subject "Mailing List" and an empty message body. The only thing required for you to be added is name (even if just a nick name) and location, in order for me to reduce the chance of spam e-mails, and so I can be more informal when discussing something in person. To unsubscribe to the List, simply send me an empty e-mail with the subject "Unsubscribe".
 

In the following chapters we will give an exposition of Orthodox Christianity, which is the main stem from first Christian times that altered nothing that was given to us. Most Christian groups today admit this (for historically Orthodoxy is the main stem) but deviate in many ways from it. The stuff below is not meant to be read lightly over supper but is meant to be printed if possible or bookmarked (ctrl-D or choose Bookmarks and then Add New) and copied for offline viewing and studied extensively with the Bible in hand (and maybe the other references if you can find them), to double-check the verses given and understand what is said better. Also, please note that most of the notes found in these pages are translations or copies or adaptations of parts of theological books or the result of conversations from my mailing list (see previous paragraph), with the results being double-checked with various sources to ensure that they agree completely with the Orthodox point of view (if a view appears and is non-orthodox it is always stated or implied from the context; e.g. a question posed introducing a non-orthodox view which is critically tested against the orthodox view). For references used to produce these notes, please e-mail me. Of course, you will have questions. I welcome all, so please do e-mail me . Also you can check the newsgroup alt.religion.christian.east-orthodox for various discussions (to e-mail a message to the newsgroup straight away, click here). However I recommend against visiting this newsgroup (see warning below).

A word of warning:do not forget that the majority of the people found in this "alternative" newsgroup are not necessarily Eastern Orthodox, or even Oriental or something else Orthodox, even if they claim to be such! Representatives of the ancient Eastern Orthodox Church, despite its name, do not moderate this newsgroup; e.g. say, by some of the representatives that have appeared in various local continuous councils of Orthodoxy or something. Unfortunately, anyone can write anything they want there, which of course is fine, but the problem is that a lot of people there claim to be Orthodox without being such (there is ecumenists, Copts, neoprotestants and even Satanists who appear in the newsgroup claiming they are "orthodox" in order to confuse people and attack Orthodoxy). Therefore only write to this newsgroup if you are certain of the beliefs of Orthodoxy and even then it is rather futile; this is not a place to seek the truth! You will only be confused more than you were before you started your quest! After all, losing one's breath in discussions that are totally unmoderated is time-consuming, fruitless and even dangerous, because a lot of false information can be sent this way. Also, a lot of blasphemous postings are placed online, with ridiculous discussions from a few people (usu. kids) that simply want to wind people up and thus I do not recommend spending time there at all. It is unlikely you will help anyone or be helped much. If you truly want to find out the belief and its analysis against other denominations, you can start by reading these pages here, read other web pages on Orthodoxy (again: careful!), read Orthodox books, and then contact one or more of the church links I give below; however, ultimately, you should not seek the truth online and stop at that. What one must do is talk to an Orthodox priest of his or her choice in their vicinity (provided that the priest he talks to is knowledgeable in Orthodoxy enough and that he is indeed a true Orthodox priest; you can check if he belongs to a church that is in communion with the Ecumenical Patriarchate in Constantinople (for an (incomplete) list of such Churches, go here). And in any case, there exist other mailing lists which are of a more serious nature and moderated, such as for example, orthodoxia@thrace.ee.duth.gr . Another great list to subscribe to is that of the Church of Greece; go to this address: http://www.ecclesia.gr/News/messenger/ehost_rules.html in order to read the rules (click Agree) and then follow the information in order to subscribe to the list. Please note that temporarily the list is not working; please contact the Ecclesia host for news of possible list updates (contact@ecclesia.gr)

Also, please note that links such as www.orthodoxia.com, or www.orthodoxia.gr, even though they are in Greek and about Orthodoxy and claim to love Orthodoxy, are not Orthodox in nature; only claim to be ( independent magazines putting forward their own "Orthodox" views, in this case)! How careful one must be online!!! The devil has put many clever traps and the internet is a great place to place traps in! In future, I will try and make a list of all so-called "orthodox" links and separate them from the true Orthodox links, in order for you not to be deceived. Clearly www.ecclesia.gr is the best of the "Greek" links, being the official page of the Church of Greece!

CrossEnglish Bibles online

A good English Bible online is here (however it is still not completed and being a Vulgate translation has some misleading translations at a few points; e.g. at John 12;23 it reads "gentiles" instead of "Greeks").

Other Bibles can be found here; however, please do note that, except for the Latin Vulgate, they do not contain the full books of the Bible as far as the Old Testament is concerned and many a time these Bibles are vague and change the meanings of verses quite considerably (including the Vulgate) from the original koine and Septuagint texts. As such, please view such Bibles only in reference to the original text, like I do; if you cannot, then I strongly suggest the first reference only, but again with extreme caution. Best idea would be to get an Orthodox study Bible or something (e.g. try orthbooks.co.uk).

Straight to the point? Go to the index! New to Orthodoxy? Or a sceptic about where it all comes from? Then you might want to try going here first!

You are visitor number to this religious page. Please write back to me with criticisms and further suggestions for improvement. Also note that during the various chapters below you will encounter many terms that may be unknown (theological). These need not cause trouble to you though; simply click on the highlighted term and it will lead you to an explanation of it in a relevant section. Afterwards use the Back button on your browser to return to the point where you left off before your little deviation. Thank you for visiting and I pray the Lord be with you. Remember: read the Bible with a humble heart and trust no one, not even your own thoughts; if you reach a point you do not understand, simply ignore it and do not try to understand it; the Spirit will show it to you later on. These are the words of Elder Paisios of the Holy Mountain. Without doing that, you will never be able to understand the Bible, using just your logic; unless you are part of Orthodoxy already and you do it the safe way (why safe? go here to find out why) ; listen to your Spiritual father and the other fathers of the Church! :) . May God help you in your quest; I hope I can provide a small help to your quest with the following notes. And never forget the monologistic prayer: "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, show mercy upon me, the sinner" which you can repeat in your head constantly to cleanse it from thoughts and always pray to God humbly before reading the Bible so that He can send the grace to you so that you can understand the meaning of the words of the Bible. And then you will be led to a "second Bible", the Divine Tradition, and thus to Orthodoxy, if you are not already part of it. Note that when I say "second Bible" I should more accurately say that the Bible itself exists within the One Tradition and by the distinction I make I do not wish nor intend to separate the two thus impairing both the Tradition and the Bible. 

The Cross
Home page
Orthodoxy is not just another denomination, one more addition to the 4,500 plus religious groups that claim to be Christianity (or part of it) today. Most of us these days, seeing this huge number and reading the Bible who talks about The Church and the wish of Christ for unity of the Church through the centuries via the Holy Spirit, wonder what is going on. Many people eventually (if not become essentially atheist) believe that "the truth is divided to a number of groups" and most groups are right "more or less". Of course, most people today simply continue to belong to the christian group they were born and raised in, without even querying if things are wrong there. Unfortunately, it is our responsibility to seek the truth, which according to the Bible must have been kept into a One whole, no matter how we want this not to be the case. After all, religion must be the perfection in our lives, not a man-made thing and hence erroneous (or vice versa: an erroneous thing and hence man-made).
St. Katherine the Great MartyrCrossWho am I?
Of course, why should you believe me at the end of the day? The views put forward here are those of the Church of Greece, which undoubtedly is at the centre of Orthodox Christianity; not one jot of what you read here will be different from the beliefs of any of the other Churches of the Orthodox world (here is a list of them).  English Orthodoxy is still translating the wealth of Tradition into English from Greek and there is great respect for the ancient Church of Greece by the Christian world over. Also read the legend on "old Greek" below, regarding the importance of Greece in Orthodox Christianity. All this however is only important because Greece is a typical Church from the Orthodox world and well known, and it has the additional advantage of having no language barriers with the Bible; this (as we will see during the analysis) will prove invaluable. By God's Providence, Greece is an Orthodox country (98% of the population is Orthodox) so that non-Greek speaking Orthodox can easily contact the Greek world for theological discussions which need accurate interpretations of course; otherwise there would be a great danger for Orthodoxy if the country whose language God chose for His Scriptures (after all, the Septuagint is older than the Masoretic text and of equal status, if not higher) had deviated into heresy and cut itself off the One Body. But because Christ is at the helm (Matt. 28; 20) this is not the case.
I am closely related to a member of the friends of Mount Athos and intend to become a member of the friends of Mount Athos in Europe, the communities involved and interested in the life and teachings of the monks of Mount Athos, the Holy Mountain at the North-eastern part of Greece in Chalkidiki. Please note that such people as H.R.H. Prince Charles and H.R.H. Prince Philip are honorary members of the friends of Mount Athos in Europe. My spiritual father is from the Holy Mountain and through his guidance and immense wisdom I have managed to write a few things here, mainly using the wise words of well-known theologians respected (and feared) the world over, such as are fr. Alevizopoulos (Ph.D. in Philosophy and Ph.D. in Theology), fr. Joel Yannacopoulos and others.
 
By asking theologians and priests who accept Orthodox Christianity as the one agreeing with the Church of Greece (among others of course, such as are the Serbian Orthodox Church, the Russian, OCA etc.) you can check against the beliefs and views put forward here so that you can be sure that this material here truly represents that of Orthodoxy's and is not Orthodox only by name. If you ask priests it might be important that you check against their ordination succession history, to ensure you have not fallen into a priest who claims to be "orthodox" but has been removed from the Orthodox Church as heretic either individually (himself preaching his own things) or in some schismatic group (such as the Old Calendarists are in Greece; not those who follow the Old Calendar, but those who follow it on a dogmatic level and thus do not accept New Calendarists into communion or confession etc.). A good rule-of-thumb is to check against the decisions of the local continuous synods (or of the Ecumenical synods) if they have decreed that the "orthodox" group you try to approach for more information is in reality a schismatic or heretical group appearing under the cover of Orthodox Christianity in order to confuse and lure people into a trap. Also, note that the word "orthodox" itself has become lately very fashionable esp. among non-denominationalists and neo-protestants, so one has to be that more careful these days.
CrossSome introductory material
Just a little explanation first: The Orthodox Church (as we shall see later on) is the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church that we confess in the Creed. The Orthodox Church was founded by our Lord and God and Saviour Jesus Christ upon St. Peter and all the Holy Apostles and contains the fulness of the revealed truth for all peoples in all places and at all times. The Orthodox Church is the Catholic Church. Note there is another, the Franco-Germanic Papal denomination, which uses the term "Catholic" to describe itself. However, according to Orthodoxy, she is not the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church, for many reasons (e.g. the "infallibility" of the Pope, the "Filioque" etc.) . The head of the Church must be Christ according to the Bible, not a man (Pope). In this sense the Pope is an antichrist. In the Orthodox Church, the Greek Archbishop that is above all in the autocephalous church of Greece (e.g.), is only another man, not thought of as infallible, and like all priests operates via Christ, the only High Priest as mentioned in the Bible. The Archbishop is not the head of the Orthodox Church. This is done only for hierarchical purposes. The Greek Patriarchate belongs to the one in Constantinople and so does OCA; again the Archbishop in OCA is the head there only in the sense of hierarchy. The one in Constantinople is like a "president" and the archbishops of the various autocephalous churches are like "prime ministers" (although not all belong to the Patriarchate in Constantinople; e.g. the Russian Orthodox Patriarchate does not even though it is of course in full communion with it). In fact not all churches are autocephalous either as the reader can see here (for more details look at the Patriarchate's web page ; see also this link; another great link is the Antiochian British homepage). Again, I stress, these operate "in power" only in general church-related matters as the representatives of a hierarchical community (much like a government) and not in the principles of the Church. No archbishop (who is elected by other bishops) is considered as infallible! We are all humans and as such we will all err. Only the Church's local and general councils (known as local and ecumenical synods respectively) are "infallible" and in particular her Seven Ecumenical synods are "infallible" because they kept the truth intact following the example of the apostles in the Acts (Apostolic Synod in Jerusalem) whose decision on the circumcision of the Gentiles was of course "infallible" only because all the Church was present (her representatives) and not individual people making decisions (like the Pope does in the schismatic Romeo catholic Church). And the Synods are "infallible" because they were synods, i.e. councils, where all the representatives of the Church were present and the Holy Spirit ensured their decisions to be "infallible"; after all, Christ promised that not even Hades himself will manage to throw His Church off her rock; (correct) faith. And if we throw the Synods away and doubt them, we must also doubt the God-inspired nature of the Scriptures that were testified, examined and its books gathered by these very representatives (and therefore God-inspired themselves in this matter). For else, why do we accept the Bible as what it is today? (c.f. notes on Scriptures and Tradition). But more on all this later.


The only thing I wish to stress at this point is that, even though the Greek church spread Orthodoxy to a lot of other countries, and even though the Greek language is the predominant in Christianity and justifiably has an honourable place in Orthodoxy, Orthodox Christianity itself is NOT an ethnic religion (e.g. it was not first developed in Greece or mainly existed there through history).

The adjectives "Greek", "British", "Romanian", "American" etc. (which are sometimes accurately placed - Greek Church corresponds to the Church of Greece in group (II), and sometimes inaccurately placed - "American" could correspond to OCA or one of the Churches in group (IV)) are only used to stress the locality of the particular Orthodox Church but the teachings (ethos and doctrines), i.e. the Tradition, is unchanged and therefore it does not depend on ethnic barriers but on the barriers of the truth of the Word of God; whoever, even Orthodox, teaches false doctrines is removed from the Church's grounds. Tradition exists in all other (non-Orthodox) churches too, in some form or other; e.g. the Anglicans have the Book of Prayers that is still in use from the 16th century. Tradition in the sense of doctrines and beliefs, in the sense of Unwritten Writ, exists everywhere; this in case you have heard that the Orthodox are "traditionalist" and do not change at all; this is not true. The Church does not change internally but she has changed externally many a time (for more on this look up this link).

This removal of heretics from the grounds of Orthodoxy holds both for individual people (both laity and clergy) as well as for groups of people that become heretics (e.g. Old Calendarists in Greece contravening the local synod's decision on the use of the New Calendar and the presuppositions for a non-heretical following of the Old Calendar). This apparent austerity in matters of faith is not due to some "problem" that the Orthodox have in "socialising" with other religious groups/sects or stubbornness in letting people "express themselves freely", but due to the commands that the Lord gave us; here is but one:

"If ye love me, keep my commandments. And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Paraclete, that he may abide with you for ever; Even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you"(John 14; 15-17).

So first we must try to keep His commandments (all) and then can we only hope for the Spirit to come to us. (Of course Christ understands our hearts and awards our efforts, as long as we stay on the right path; He does not expect us to be perfect but to strive towards perfection - in practice, esp. in today's world of low ethical values, He expects so much less!)  In the words of a monk from Mt. Athos in Greece that I heard a while ago and impressed me deeply: "We [i.e. the monks] only make suggestions; but the Lord has given us commands". Of course God's compassion brings His Spirit to us when we pray to Him in need of Him, but the actual Church herself can never receive the grace of the Spirit as long as she insists in preaching false (and usually blasphemous) doctrines (c.f. comparative doctrine). Thus austerity in matters of faith is not a sign of being "backwards" or "of the olden days" but a necessity brought by the Lord's explicit commands in His Scriptures. Beliefs of ecumenism (e.g. Nicky Gumbel's Questions of Life, p. 148, "In one sense, ..."), namely that we can all get together because all that matters is to hold the Spirit inside us and not the teachings per se, are unacceptable in Orthodoxy, for ecumenism presupposes unified obedience in the One Word of God and not the other way around; even just the aforementioned verses from John's gospel make this quite clear.

CrossAim

My main aim is to provide a general albeit careful exposition of Orthodoxy and its beliefs. In particular the seven sacraments of the Church are analysed with references given from both the Bible and first-christian scriptures: (Nepio)baptism, Eucharist, priesthood (ordination), chrismation, confession, holy unction (anointing by oil) and matrimony. The reason why references from both these sources are given is twofold:

(a) The Divine Revelation was given to us "once and for all" and the apostle says "Hold fast the form of sound words which thou hast heard of me, in faith and love which is in Christ Jesus; That good thing that was committed unto thee keep by the Holy Ghost which dwelleth in us" (2 Tim. 1;13-14). This way we see that the Divine Tradition of the Church is as important and within its atmosphere it is that the Bible has a unique meaning (for details see Chapter 1). However, people away from the body of Church cannot explain the Bible correctly. Therefore if I only gave references from the Bible some people would say "Well, I interpret this (or my church does) in a different way" or "anyone who believes they have the whole truth is spiritually abusive" etc. and we would get nowhere at the end of the day. Also some translated Bibles esp. in protestant churches, have changed the meaning of words (esp. in verses in Genesis). I will be using the original koine Greek text; and the interpretation I do will always be based on the original in old Greek (koine) and it will always agree with the formal position taken by the Orthodox Church. However for purposes of presentation, translated Bibles in English commonly used by English-speaking peoples will be used partly, such as the King James (Old and New) and the Vulgate; although many times the actual verses from these translations (which as translations have many shortcomings) will be altered appropriately to cater for the correct meaning or if not an appropriate footnote will be added to explain how the translation fails and what the meaning is (the wording from the koine). So the views put forward in these notes are not only mine but coincide with the formal position of the Orthodox Church. A good bible reference to check verses against in the English language can be found here although it is highly recommended that an Orthodox study Bible is found and used in conjunction with it. Mother of God

(b) In the Matthew gospel we read: "And I say unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it" (Matt. 16; 18). In other words, nothing will move the Church from her foundations, not Hades himself. So, individual people can go into apostasy, even "shepherds" (Acts 20;29-31. Revel. 9;1) but not the Church (Matt. 16;18). As a result, by giving references from the first-christian times I establish the beliefs of the first Church and if someone turns around and says, "Well, I think they went into apostasy and I am right", I can refer back to the Bible itself to disprove them. In a sense, with these references I establish a proof out of the original conjecture.

CrossWhat next?

Compare the belief systems of other churches to Orthodoxy (Pentecostal, Adventist, Mormon, Anglican, Romeo catholic, Jehovah's witnesses', evangelical etc.). Time allowing I hope one day to expand to gurus, new age and other occults.

Page still not complete, continually expanding, so visit often, as new chapters will be coming up all the time. Hope this proves helpful.

CrossMain Index

General guide to reading what first and how:

The truly interested reader:The Formal exposition with hints of comparison is complete in a sense, compact and appropriately detailed, however it is quite theologically advanced. In many ways, it is best to skim through the material on its sub-pages and then go through the material in Further Exposition, in slightly more detail. Finally, but not least, one should read THOROUGHLY and very carefully (an absolute must) the comparative doctrinal pages, ESPECIALLY the Analysis of Doctrines (1 and 2 so far) together with Comparative Doctrine (esp. 1 if not 2 and 3).  Finally, one should return to the Formal exposition and read it in a new light, which in a sense will also serve as a general "revision" of the material as well.

The interested reader who gets bored easily:At least skim through Further Exposition, and concentrate a bit on the issue on "Celibacy of Bishops" as it is needed later on.  Quickly but carefully go through Comparative 1, and then skip Comparative 2 and 3 and go straight to the Analysis of Doctrines 1 and 2 (which you now must read very carefully).

The curious and slightly interested by-passer:As a "light" introduction you might prefer Comparative 2 and 3. However, even to the curious by-passer the Analysis of doctrines (1 and 2) pages are highly recommended to read; when you have any question which you might have failed to understand due to having not read anything else, fear not. Click on the appropriate term that causes you distress and it will lead you to a careful explanation of it in a relevant section.

I have NO time:Download the Analysis 1 and Analysis 2 notes, as an absolute minimum, and hope to see you when you're less busy!

CrossFormal exposition with hints of comparison

CrossFurther expository and comparative doctrine
CrossFurther exposition and comparison
CrossComparative doctrine

E-mail me!






0 -- Instead of a Prologue

Before I start let me explain two important terms: Orthodoxy = orthi + doxa = correct + faith, from Old Greek roots. It means the unchanged beliefs in a particular group. E.g. the orthodox Jews are the Jews that have stayed close to the beliefs of Judaism and have not "strayed". Orthodox refers as a word in general to someone following the right way. The "strayed" way, the deviated way rather, is expressed in the word "heterodox". E.g. heretic beliefs in Christianity must be therefore heterodox. Please note that Orthodox Christianity presupposes Orthodoxy and Orthopraxia, which means doing the things Orthodoxy teaches!

Catholic = cath + holos = of a whole. It means related to the whole. The Franco-Germanic Papal church call themselves "catholic" because they believe they uphold the truth catholically around the world (although most usually stress the "Romeo" in catholic to differentiate from other "Catholics", such as the Old Catholics, much like the "Orthodoxy" I mention coincides with the ancient "Eastern Orthodox Church" and not other denominations which call themselves "orthodox" simply because the name is in fashion among non-denominationalists, ecumenists and various neo-protestant groups). However they are usually referred to as "Papal" or "Papist" because the Pope is the head of the Romeo catholic church. Whenever the terms orthodox and catholic are used below henceforth, they could also mean "correct way" and "of a whole", respectively, in accordance with the above-mentioned semantic meanings of the words; this so as people may not think they necessarily refer to the name of the respective churches as they are known. The word Orthodoxy will correspond of course to the Orthodox Church and/or her beliefs. Context will always make it obvious as to the meaning.

Another point: I am translating verses and terminology from Greek directly; as such please excuse minor differences in terminology to what you are used to.

Finally ... format used: Chapter; Verse and Chapter; Verse1.Verse2 to mean verses Verse1 and Verse2 from Chapter and Chapter; Verse1-Verse2 to mean all verses from Verse1 to Verse2 inclusive in Chapter. I use "divine" for "hieros" (ιερός) and "holy" for "hagios" (άγιος). So e.g. even though some are accustomed to "Holy Ghost" or "Divine Spirit", because though in Greek it is "Hagio Pneuma" I usually use "Holy Spirit".

These notes are the result of various theological books accepted by Orthodoxy as valid (in case you worry) and only a minor portion is my own additions; merely, explanations of certain things. For those interested in receiving a list of authors of such books, please e-mail me; some I found are in English so you can benefit immensely from these, like I did as well. Any shortcomings in these notes are entirely mine, due to my low spiritual progress; please do tell me of anything that seems out of place with Orthodox doctrine.

Index
 
 

EXPLANATION OF TERMS USED IN THE ABOVE CHAPTERS

Index
Back to Very Top

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

1