“Windows To Spirituality”
Eastern Christianity
Eastern Christianity is a Christian traditions and churches that developed in the Balkans, Eastern Europe, Asia Minor, the Middle East, Horn of Africa, India and parts of the Far East over several centuries of religious antiquity.
Eastern Christianity comprises church families that developed outside the Occident, with major bodies including the Eastern Orthodox Church, the Oriental Orthodox churches, the Eastern Catholic churches (that are in communion with Rome but still maintain Eastern liturgies), and the denominations descended from the Church of the East.
Main articles
Eastern denominational families |
Spirituality in Eastern ChristianityRole of Christians in the Islamic culture |
Saint Thomas Christians The Saint Thomas Christians, also called Syrian Christians of India, Marthoma Suriyani Nasrani, Malankara Nasrani, or Nasrani Mappila, are an ethno-religious community of Indian Christians in the state of Kerala (Malabar region), who, for the most part, employ the Eastern and Western liturgical rites of Syriac Christianity. They trace their origins to the evangelistic activity of Thomas the Apostle in the 1st century. The Saint Thomas...
Schism Of 1552 The schism of 1552 was an important event in the history of the Church of the East. It divided the church into two factions, of which one entered into communion with Rome becoming part of the Catholic Church at this time and the other remained independent until the 19th century. Although the Eliya line,...
Ecumenical Patriarchate Of Constantinople The Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople (Oikoumenikón Patriarkhíon Konstantinoupóleos, Patriarchatus Oecumenicus Constantinopolitanus; Rum Ortodoks Patrikhanesi, İstanbul Ekümenik Patrikhanesi, “Roman Orthodox Patriarchate, Ecumenical Patriarchate”) is one of the fifteen to seventeen autocephalous churches (or “jurisdictions”) that together compose the Eastern Orthodox Church. It is headed by the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, currently Bartholomew, Archbishop...
Eastern Christian Monasticism Eastern Christian Monasticism is the life followed by monks and nuns of the Eastern Orthodox Church, Oriental Orthodoxy, the Church of the East and Eastern Catholicism. Eastern monasticism is founded on the Rule of St Basil and is sometimes thus referred to as Basilian. History Christian monasticism began in the Eastern Mediterranean in Syria, Palestine and Egypt where the Desert...
Eritrean Orthodox Tewahedo Church The Eritrean Orthodox Tewahedo Church (Tigrinya: ቤተ ክርስትያን ተዋህዶ ኤርትራ) is one of the Oriental Orthodox Churches with its headquarters in Asmara, Eritrea. Its autocephaly was recognised by Pope Shenouda III of Alexandria, Pope of the Coptic Orthodox Church, after Eritrea gained its independence from Ethiopia in 1993. History See also: Timeline of Orthodox Tewahedo Origins Tewahedo (Ge’ez: ተዋሕዶ täwaḥədo) is a...
Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church The Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church (Amharic: የኢትዮጵያ ኦርቶዶክስ ተዋሕዶ ቤተ ክርስቲያን, Yäityop’ya ortodoks täwahedo bétäkrestyan) is the largest of the Oriental Orthodox Churches. One of the few Christian churches in sub-Saharan Africa originating before European colonization of the continent, the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church dates back centuries, and has a current membership of about...
Eastern Orthodox Worship Eastern Orthodox worship in this article is distinguished from Eastern Orthodox prayer in that ‘worship‘ refers to the activity of the Christian Church as a body offering up prayers to God while ‘prayer‘ refers to the individual devotional traditions of the Orthodox. The worship of the Eastern Orthodox Church is viewed as the...
Eastern Orthodoxy Eastern Orthodoxy (or Eastern Orthodox Christianity) is one of the three main branches of Christianity, alongside Catholicism and Protestantism. Like the Pentarchy of the first millennium, the mainstream (or “canonical“) Eastern Orthodox Church is organised into autocephalous churches independent from each other. In the 21st century, the number of mainstream autocephalous churches is seventeen; there also exist autocephalous...
Chaldean Catholic Church The Chaldean Catholic Church (ʿīdtha kaldetha qāthuliqetha; الكنيسة الكلدانية al-Kanīsa al-kaldāniyya; Ecclesia Chaldaeorum Catholica, ‘Catholic Church of the Chaldeans’) is an Eastern Catholic particular church (sui juris) in full communion with the Holy See and the rest of the Catholic Church and is headed by the Chaldean Patriarchate. Employing in its liturgy the East Syriac Rite in the Syriac language, it is part of Syriac...
Coptic Orthodox Church The Coptic Orthodox Church or the Egyptian Orthodox Church, also known as the Coptic Orthodox Patriarchate of Alexandria, is an Oriental Orthodox Christian church based in Egypt, servicing Africa and the Middle East. The head of the church and the See of Alexandria is the Pope of Alexandria on the Holy Apostolic See of Saint Mark, who also carries the title of Father...
Byzantine Rite The Byzantine Rite, also known as the Greek Rite or the Rite of Constantinople, identifies the wide range of cultural, liturgical, and canonical practices that developed in the Eastern Orthodox Church of Constantinople. The canonical hours are very long and complicated, lasting about eight hours (longer during Great Lent) but are abridged outside of large monasteries. An iconostasis,...
Eastern Protestant Christianity The term Eastern Protestant Christianity (or Eastern Reformed Christianity), as well as Oriental Protestant Christianity, encompasses a range of heterogeneous Protestant Christian denominations that developed outside of the Occident, from the latter half of the nineteenth century and yet keeps elements of Eastern Christianity, to varying degrees....
Byzantine Rite Lutheranism Byzantine Rite Lutheranism (also known as Byzantine Lutheranism or Eastern Lutheranism) refers to Lutheran Churches, such as those of Ukraine and Slovenia, that use a form of the Byzantine Rite as their liturgy. It is unique in that it is based on the Eastern Christian rite used...
Nestorianism Nestorianism is a polysemic term, used in Christian theology and Church history as a designation for several mutually related but doctrinarily distinctive sets of teachings. The first meaning of the term is related to the original teachings of Christian theologian Nestorius (d. c. 450) who promoted specific doctrines in the fields of Christology and Mariology. The second meaning of the term is much...
True Orthodoxy True Orthodoxy, or Genuine Orthodoxy (“Church of True Orthodox Christians”; “True Orthodox Church”), often pejoratively referred to as “Zealotry“, is a movement within Eastern Orthodox Christianity that has been separated from the mainstream Eastern Orthodox Church over issues of ecumenism and calendar reform since the 1920s. Population Those...
History Of The Eastern Orthodox Church According to the Eastern Orthodox tradition, the history of the Eastern Orthodox Church is traced back to Jesus Christ and the Apostles. The Apostles appointed successors, known as bishops, and they in turn appointed other bishops in a process known as Apostolic succession. Over time, five Patriarchates were established to organize the...
History Of Eastern Christianity This article covers the history of Eastern Christianity. Christianity has been, historically a Middle Eastern religion with its origin in Judaism. Eastern Christianity refers collectively to the Christian traditions and churches which developed in the Middle East, Egypt, Asia Minor, the Far East, Balkans, Eastern Europe, Northeastern Africa and southern India over several centuries...
Outline Of Eastern Christianity This article is the outline of Eastern Christianity. Enjoy…! Eastern Christianity is Christian traditions and churches that developed in the Balkans, Eastern Europe, Asia Minor, the Middle East, the Horn of Africa, India, and parts of the Far East over several centuries of religious antiquity. Eastern...
Syriac Christianity Syriac Christianity (Mšiḥāyuṯā Suryāyṯā; مسيحية سريانية, masīḥiyyat suryāniyya) represents a distinctive branch of Eastern Christianity, whose formative theological writings and traditional liturgies are expressed in Classical Syriac language, a variation of Aramaic language. In a wider sense, the term can also refer to Aramaic Christianity in general, thus encompassing all...
Essence–energies Distinction The essence–energies distinction was formulated by Gregory Palamas of Thessaloniki (1296–1359), as part of his defense of the Athonite monastic practice of hesychasmos, the mystical exercise of “stillness” to facilitate ceaseless inner prayer and noetic contemplation of God, against the charge of heresy brought by the humanist scholar and theologian Barlaam of Calabria. In Palamite theology, there is a distinction between the essence (ousia) and the energies (energeia) of God....
