Eastern Orthodox churches share an ancient Christian heritage; 1054 is a conventional marker of their gradual separation from Rome.
Eastern churches1054grew out of The early, undivided Church
Differences between the Greek East and Latin West developed over centuries. The excommunications of 1054 became a conventional marker of the East-West schism, not an instantaneous separation everywhere. Eastern Orthodox churches share a doctrinal and sacramental tradition and recognise seven ecumenical councils. They are self-governing churches with several liturgical forms; the recognition and boundaries of some jurisdictions are disputed.
The Eastern Orthodox Church is the second largest body of Christians in the world. Its churches in Greece, Russia, Romania, Serbia and the Middle East parted from Rome in 1054, and they keep the worship and the teaching of the Church's first thousand years.
Rome and Constantinople shared communion for much of the first millennium, but earlier divisions had already separated other Eastern churches. That history is introduced on the page for the early Church 9. They drifted apart slowly. The East spoke Greek and the West Latin; customs differed over married priests and the bread used at the altar; and two questions would not settle. One was how far the authority of the bishop of Rome reached over the other ancient centres. The other was the Filioque, the words and the Son that Western churches added to the Nicene Creed, which the East held that no local church may add to a creed agreed by a council of the whole Church 17,3,9. In 1054 legates of Pope Leo IX and Patriarch Michael Cerularius excommunicated each other in Constantinople. Historians take that as the marker of the Great Schism, though the estrangement had grown for centuries and few at the time thought it final 17,27. Those excommunications were lifted by Paul VI and Athenagoras in 1965 37.
What deepened the wound was not an argument. In 1204 the soldiers of the Fourth Crusade, bound for Egypt, took and sacked Constantinople instead, and Pope Innocent III wrote that they had spared neither age nor sex nor religion 19,39,28. The Orthodox world had its own long history to live meanwhile: seven ecumenical councils, the last of them at Nicaea in 787, which affirmed the veneration of icons; after renewed iconoclasm, their restoration was celebrated in 843 4215,18,16; the mission of Cyril and Methodius to the Slavs from 863, who made an alphabet and put the liturgy into Slavonic 31,9; the baptism of the Rus about 988, which carried Orthodoxy north 9,17; the fall of Constantinople to the Ottomans in 1453, after which most Orthodox Christians lived under Muslim rule for four centuries while Moscow rose 29,17; and the hesychast renewal defended by Gregory Palamas in the fourteenth century 30,10. Today about fifteen self-governing churches share one faith, with the Patriarch of Constantinople honoured as first among equals rather than as a ruler over them 26,14,36.
The sack of 1204 was answered eight centuries later. In 2001, in Athens, John Paul II asked the Lord's forgiveness for the occasions past and present when Catholics have sinned against their Orthodox brothers and sisters, naming Constantinople 38.
Orthodox Christians believe what the Nicene Creed says, in the words the councils agreed, without the later Western addition. They believe God became human so that human beings could share in God's own life, a healing they call theosis. Icons, they teach, are honoured, not worshipped.
The faith is set by seven ecumenical councils, from Nicaea in 325 to Nicaea again in 787, and the Orthodox hold that no bishop and no council since has the standing to add to what those councils confessed 16,3,1. God is one in three persons, and the Orthodox pray the Creed as it was written, so that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father 3,4. Salvation is described less as a debt paid than as a healing: because the Word was made flesh, human nature is opened to God, and a Christian grows by grace toward what 2 Peter calls a share in the divine nature 2,40,1. Revelation reaches the Church through Holy Tradition, of which Scripture is the heart, and which also holds the councils, the liturgy, the Fathers and the icons; Paul's charge to hold the traditions you were taught is read in that light 2,41,11.
There are seven sacraments in the common count, baptism and chrismation together, the Eucharist, confession, marriage, ordination and anointing, and the Orthodox affirm that the bread and wine are the body and blood of Christ without defining the manner of the change 7,1. The Second Council of Nicaea settled that images of Christ and the saints may be venerated, because the honour given to the image passes to the one it pictures, and that worship in the full sense belongs to God alone 15,8,18. Authority rests with the whole Church rather than with one see: bishops decide in council, and the body of the faithful receives what they decide 11,1.
Worship and practice
Orthodox worship is the Divine Liturgy, almost always sung, with incense, icons and long prayers, and the people usually standing. Most of it has been in use since the fourth century. Easter, which the Orthodox call Pascha, is the greatest feast of the year.
The liturgy usually served is the one that carries the name of John Chrysostom, with the older and longer liturgy of Basil the Great on ten days of the year. It has two halves, the liturgy of the word, with readings and preaching, and the liturgy of the faithful, ending in Communion given to adults and infants alike in bread and wine together 6,5. The altar stands behind the iconostasis, a screen of icons, and the whole building is painted so that worshippers stand among the saints 8,5. Vespers and Matins frame the day, and Vespers opens with the psalm that begins Bless the Lord, O my soul 5,6. Orthodox Christians fast from meat, dairy and oil through Great Lent and the other fasting seasons, and they prepare for Communion by fasting and confession 5,1. Many churches still reckon the fixed feasts by the Julian calendar, which is why Orthodox Christmas can fall on 7 January, and almost all of them reckon Pascha by the older rule, so it usually falls later than Easter in the West 26,17.
Scripture and Bible translations
The Orthodox Old Testament is the Septuagint, the Greek translation the apostles used, so it has a few books and passages that Protestant and even Catholic Bibles do not. The New Testament is the Byzantine Greek text. No single English translation is authorized for all Orthodox churches.
Because the Septuagint is the Church's Old Testament, the Orthodox canon includes 1 Esdras, 3 Maccabees, the Prayer of Manasseh and Psalm 151 alongside the books Catholics also keep, and the Psalms are numbered as the Greek numbers them, one behind the Hebrew through most of the book 17,26. Greek churches read the New Testament in its original language, Russian churches in the Synodal translation of 1876, and English-speaking parishes use several versions, the Orthodox Study Bible among them, with no one text binding on all 26,17. Read here: Brenton's Septuagint, the standard English translation of the Greek Old Testament, the King James Version with the Apocrypha, whose New Testament follows the Byzantine text Orthodox churches read, and the Russian Synodal translation. The versions guide sets out what each jurisdiction uses today.
In church
The Old Testament is read from the Septuagint, the Greek translation the early Church used, and the New Testament from the Byzantine Greek text. Russian churches read the Synodal translation; Greek churches the original Greek.
In English
There is no single English translation authorized across all Orthodox jurisdictions. The Orthodox Study Bible combines an NKJV New Testament with an Old Testament translated from the Septuagint by St. Athanasius Academy. Orthodox readers also encounter the NKJV, KJV and RSV, although these versions differ in textual basis and translation philosophy.
Old Believers
The Old Believers, who kept the Russian rite as it stood before Patriarch Nikon's reforms of the 1650s, still read the Church Slavonic Bible and service books in their pre-reform editions.
These passages illustrate themes discussed in this profile; they are not a survey of members' favorite verses. Each is quoted from the King James Version + Apocrypha and links to its chapter. You can explore the text for study or personal reflection; memorization is optional.
Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises: that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.
Partakers of the divine nature. The verse behind theosis, the Orthodox word for what salvation is for.
In the year that king Uzziah died I saw also the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple. Above it stood the seraphims: each one had six wings; with twain he covered his face, and with twain he covered his feet, and with twain he did fly. And one cried unto another, and said, Holy, holy, holy, is the LORD of hosts: the whole earth is full of his glory.
Holy, holy, holy. Isaiah's vision of the throne is sung at every Divine Liturgy, and it is why Orthodox worship feels like standing in heaven's doorway.
Bless the LORD, O my soul. O LORD my God, thou art very great; thou art clothed with honour and majesty.
Bless the Lord, O my soul. The psalm that opens Vespers and so opens the Church's day. Orthodox books number it Psalm 103, following the Greek.
People
Basil the Greatabout 330 to 379 Bishop of Caesarea, defender of the Nicene faith, founder of the first Christian hospital, and author of the liturgy served on the great days of the year.21
John Chrysostomabout 347 to 407 The golden-mouthed preacher and archbishop of Constantinople, exiled for his preaching against wealth and power; his name is on the liturgy served most Sundays.20
John of Damascusabout 675 to 749 Writing safely under Muslim rule, he defended the icons against the emperors who were destroying them and gathered Orthodox teaching into one book.22
Cyril and Methodiusninth century Brothers from Thessalonica who took the faith to the Slavs from 863, inventing an alphabet so that the Bible and the liturgy could be read in Slavonic.31
Gregory Palamas1296 to 1359 Archbishop of Thessalonica who defended the monks of Mount Athos and taught that God's own energies can truly be known, though God's essence stays beyond us.30
Seraphim of Sarov1754 to 1833 A Russian hermit who spent years alone in the forest and then received thousands of visitors, greeting each one with My joy, Christ is risen.23
Bartholomew Iborn 1940 Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople since 1991, known for his work on the environment and for dialogue with other churches.24
Today
There are about 260 million Orthodox Christians. The largest number are in Russia, and the churches of Greece, Romania, Serbia, Ukraine, Ethiopia and the Middle East are old and deeply rooted. Their share of the world's Christians has fallen over the last century.
Pew counted close to 260 million in 2017 and found that the Orthodox are 12 percent of Christians worldwide, down from 20 percent in 1910, because Christianity grew faster elsewhere; that count folds in the Oriental Orthodox churches of Ethiopia and the East, which are a separate branch on the tree with their own page 35. The self-governing churches number about fifteen, and the list itself is disputed 26,14. In 2016 the Holy and Great Council met in Crete, the first council of its kind in centuries, and four churches, Antioch, Georgia, Bulgaria and Russia, did not attend 11,26. Its documents addressed relations with other Christians and the mission of the Church in the world of today 12,13. Since 2018 the Moscow Patriarchate has broken communion with Constantinople over the recognition of a self-governing church in Ukraine, a rupture that has not healed 33,25. Orthodox churches were founding members of the World Council of Churches and remain in it 36,12.
In the twentieth century the Soviet state closed or destroyed most of the churches in Russia and killed clergy and believers in numbers that run into the tens of thousands, a persecution the Church now commemorates in its new martyrs 34,9. It has also judged itself on the question that most divides it: in 1872 a council at Constantinople condemned phyletism, the ordering of the Church by nation and ethnic group 32.
Words to know
icon
A painted image of Christ, his mother or a saint, used in Orthodox and Eastern Catholic worship. The churches that use icons teach that the honour shown to the image passes to the person it pictures, and that icons are venerated rather than worshipped.
theosis
In Orthodox teaching, being made holy until a person shares in God’ own life, from the Greek words for becoming like God. Sometimes called deification. It does not mean that a person becomes God.
patriarch
The title of the senior bishop of one of the ancient Christian centres, such as Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch or Moscow. In the Hebrew Bible the same word names Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
autocephalous
Self-governing. An autocephalous church elects its own head bishop and answers to no other church, while sharing one faith and one communion with the rest of its family.
council
A gathering of bishops to settle what the Church teaches. The first, at Nicaea in 325, gave the Church its creed.
creed
A short statement of belief said together in worship. The Nicene Creed is shared by nearly every Christian tradition.
liturgy
The set form of a service: its prayers, readings and actions in their usual order. The Orthodox call their main service the Divine Liturgy.
schism
A formal parting between churches. The Great Schism of 1054 divided Catholic West from Orthodox East.
Septuagint
The Greek translation of the Hebrew scriptures made in Alexandria from about 250 BC. The early Church read it, and Orthodox Christians still do.
Pascha
The name of Easter in Greek, Latin and most languages, from the Hebrew Pesach. Orthodox Christians say Pascha; the English word Easter is unusual in coming from elsewhere.
The Christian feast of the birth of Jesus on 25 December, kept since the fourth century; churches on the Julian calendar keep the same date on 7 January.
The forty days of fasting and prayer before Easter, modelled on Jesus' forty days in the wilderness, kept from Ash Wednesday in the West and from Clean Monday in the East; it ends in Holy Week.
The Orthodox service of Holy Communion, sung from beginning to end and lasting an hour and a half or more. The form usually used is ascribed to John Chrysostom, who died in 407, with the longer liturgy of Basil the Great on ten days of the year. It has readings, preaching, the Creed, the Eucharistic prayer and Communion 6,5.
Why do Orthodox Christians kiss icons?
The Second Council of Nicaea in 787 taught that the honour given to an image passes to the person it pictures, so kissing an icon of Christ or a saint is a greeting to that person, not worship of paint and wood. Worship in the full sense belongs to God alone, and the council said so in as many words 15,8.
What is the Filioque?
One Latin word, and the Son, added in the West to the line of the Nicene Creed about the Holy Spirit. The East held that a creed agreed by the whole Church could not be altered by part of it, and also disagreed with the theology. It is one of the two questions, with the authority of the pope, that stood behind the schism of 1054 17,3,27.
Why is Orthodox Easter usually on a different day?
Almost all Orthodox churches calculate Pascha by the older Julian reckoning rather than the Gregorian calendar the West adopted in 1582, so the dates usually differ and occasionally coincide. Some churches also keep the fixed feasts, including Christmas, on the Julian calendar, which puts Christmas on 7 January 26,17.
How is Eastern Orthodox different from Oriental Orthodox?
They are two families that parted at the Council of Chalcedon in 451, long before 1054, over how to speak of Christ's divine and human natures. The Oriental Orthodox are the Coptic, Armenian, Syriac, Ethiopian, Eritrean and Malankara churches; they have their own branch on the tree. Modern dialogue has found the two families largely agreed on the faith they were once thought to differ over 17,36.
Sources
Numbered references link the account above to its sources. These include the tradition's own documents and outside reference works. The review status below distinguishes source checking from completed member and scholarly review.
BibleVerse. “Eastern Orthodox: where they came from, what they hold, and the Bible they read.” bibleverse.site, version 2026-09-09, https://bibleverse.site/denominations/eorthodox/
Awaiting review by a member of the tradition. First published 2026-09-07; last changed 2026-09-09. Years before the common era are written BC, and later years plainly, as the site's Christian pages do.
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Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises: that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.
