![]() Today there are roughly 250 million “Orthodox” Christians in the world, with nearly 4 million here in the United States. It has survived and is growing, especially here in the United States. ![]() In spite of this tragic separation and in the face of years of terrible repression and persecution, Orthodoxy has, over the centuries, struggled to maintain its faithfulness to the Lord. Holy Communion, partaking of the precious and holy body and blood of our Lord, is, for us, THE symbol of Christian unity in Christ, a unity that does not exist and that we want to see restored. We decry this continued division, but it is for this reason that we cannot in good conscience offer Holy Communion to those outside the discipline and Tradition of the Orthodox Church. 1054, and today our Christian brothers and sisters in the West remain separated in communion and jurisdiction from us. Unfortunately, that unity came to an official end in the year A.D. In fact, for the sake of accuracy, we should emphasize that for the first millennium of Christianity, the two great halves of the Christian Church, East and West, Greek speaking, Latin speaking and otherwise, were essentially united in one “catholic” (Greek for “universal”) faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. The Greek word “orthodox” simply means “correct belief” and at the same time, “correct worship.” It became the name applied to the Christian Church that grew and flourished in the eastern, predominantly Greek speaking regions of the late Roman Empire. Orthodox Christianity is not limited to the East or to any particular region. The title of the Orthodox Christian Church is usually linked with various ethnic and national titles: “Greek Orthodox,” or “Russian Orthodox,” etc., or more comprehensively, the Church is sometimes called “Eastern Orthodox.” These particular titles limit the Church in some respects because they define a “national church” that belongs to a region or state or that maintains ties with its place of origin. John of Damascus Byzantine Choir of Sacramento What is the “Orthodox” Christian Church?.
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