Eastern rite church

The Eastern Rite churches are a mix of several churches found mainly in Southwest Asia, North Africa, and Eastern Europe. They are called Eastern Rite because they do not follow the same rituals as the Roman Catholic Church, and they also tend to differ in belief from the Roman church. There are three general groups of Eastern Rite churches and many distinct churches within each group.

The largest group of Eastern Rite churches is known as the Eastern Orthodox churches. These churches split from the Roman Catholic Church in the Schism of 1054 when the patriarch of Constantinople, who is the nominal head of these churches, and the pope in Rome excommunicated each other. Most of these nearly two dozen churches, which are largely independent from one another, are found in Southwest Asia and Eastern Europe. Over 200 hundred million people belong to the Eastern Orthodox churches.

The Eastern Rite churches in the second group were accused of heresy by Christian church leaders in the fourth or fifth centuries CE. Heresy means "false belief" and refers to beliefs not accepted as official church teachings. These churches are called the Oriental Orthodox churches. They include a number of churches, such as the Armenian Apostolic Church, the Ethiopian Tewahedo Orthodox Church, and the Coptic Orthodox Church. These churches have about sixty million followers.

The third group follows Eastern Rites but recognizes the authority of the pope. These twenty-three churches are called the Eastern Catholic churches, and they include the Armenian Catholic Church, the Chaldean Catholic Church, and the Syrian Catholic Church. Their followers number about eighteen million in total; the largest—the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church—has nearly 5 million adherents.

History

All three types of Eastern Rite churches generally trace their histories back to the beginnings of Christianity. Over time, these disparate churches developed differently, either due to geographic isolation or doctrinal differences. Many of these differences can be traced back to early Christian church history.

The Oriental Orthodox churches emerged during the early Christian debates over the true nature of Jesus. Church leaders worked to codify core Christian beliefs by holding church councils at which bishops determined what was true doctrine, or orthodoxy; the bishops would expel those congregations and church leaders who held different views. One of the important early councils was held in Chalcedon (now Kadıköy, Türkiye) in 451 CE. This council affirmed the dual nature of Jesus—both divine and human. What are now called the Oriental Orthodox churches, on the other hand, were largely Monophysite churches. The members of these churches believed that Jesus had a single divine nature, not two. (Mono means "one.") As a result of this doctrine, these churches were expelled from the overall Christian church.

The Monophysite churches were found mainly in Armenia, Egypt, Ethiopia, Syria, and India. Over the centuries, they sometimes suffered persecution by Christian and Islamic states. The churches have survived, however, and remain vibrant, although small, in the twenty-first century. They have made significant contributions to Christian practice. The monastic movement is based on practices begun in the second and third centuries CE by some Coptic Christians.

The Eastern Orthodox churches were part of the main body of Christianity for many centuries. Christian leaders held many councils after the one in Chalcedon in 451, but the Eastern Orthodox churches only recognize three additional such meetings. They are the second and third councils of Constantinople (in 553 and 680–681, respectively) and the second Council of Nicaea (787). These councils essentially reinforced the earlier positions on the nature of Jesus while tailoring the language to address issues that had emerged more recently. These churches called themselves Orthodox because they claimed to follow true belief, just as Roman Catholics also did.

Over time, divisions between Rome and Constantinople festered, particularly as the bishop of Rome took the title of pope and claimed primary authority over the entire Christian church. The split became real in 1054 with the pope’s and patriarch’s mutual excommunications. Some efforts were made to unite the two Christian wings after that split, but they failed.

The Ottoman Turk conquest of Constantinople in 1453 changed the dynamics in the Eastern church. Some Orthodox churches—such as those in Bulgaria, Russia, and Serbia—lay outside Ottoman control. Later, the independence movement in Greece and the migration of many Orthodox followers to North America resulted in the creation of new, independent churches. As a result, a number of independent territorial churches developed over the centuries. In modern times, there are fourteen of these churches that are considered autocephalous, meaning that they are independent of the others. A few others are autonomous; they accept some guidance from the patriarch of Constantinople. (Although the city has been renamed Istanbul, the patriarch’s title retains the old name.)

Eastern Orthodoxy declined in Russia and parts of Eastern Europe under communism. Communist rulers tried to suppress the church, and believers often had to worship in secret. The fall of communism around 1990 prompted something of a resurgence in these churches. At the same time, decades of antichurch teaching had left only a small number of people as believers and even fewer active members of the church.

The Eastern Catholic churches were essentially separated from the Roman Catholic Church because they followed the rites and practices of the Eastern churches. Gradually, these churches joined the Roman Catholic Church by formally accepting the pope’s authority. The Maronites (Lebanese Christians) and the Catholic Armenians did so as early as the twelfth century. Other churches joined later. While accepting the pope’s authority, these churches have considerable control over their own rites and practices.

Like the Oriental Orthodox churches, many of these churches have long histories of persecution. That suffering has resurfaced in modern times, insofar as the Chaldean Christians of Iraq suffered both under the rule of Saddam Hussein and as a result of the chaos following his fall. Many fled to the United States.

Beliefs and Practices

Because the Eastern Rite churches generally share a common tradition in terms of ritual and religious worship, they are often grouped together. However, there are some local differences—for instance, in terms of the language used in services.

The Eastern Orthodox churches retain the beliefs and practices of the apostolic tradition begun by Jesus’s closest followers at the time of his death and continued by later Church fathers who were divinely inspired. These churches say that they follow the same tenets taught in the first century CE. They maintain that the forty-nine books in the Old Testament and the twenty-seven books of the New Testament in their version of the Bible are those approved in the early Church. (Roman Catholics and Protestants omit some of the Old Testament books.) Orthodox churches say that the texts they use are the authentic texts handed down over the centuries and carefully preserved. The basic texts they accept are in Greek, although these texts are translated into national languages, too.

In Orthodox teaching, Jesus is both God and man. His death on the cross and subsequent resurrection offer the promise of eternal life. Orthodox churches do not believe that Jesus’s death actually redeemed humanity or served as atonement for the sin of Adam—namely, the fact that the first man had disobeyed God in the Garden of Eden. This idea that Jesus ensured humanity’s redemption through his death and resurrection is a Roman Catholic belief. The Orthodox churches also believe that resurrection was physical.

Orthodox churches reject the primacy of the pope, arguing that all bishops are equal. These churches do concede that there are some bishops with a higher rank than others, but these churches see those differences as matters of church administration. The patriarch of Constantinople does have the right to call and lead councils of bishops, however, giving him greater influence than the other bishops.

Some Orthodox clergy, like Protestant clerics but unlike their Roman Catholic counterparts, are allowed to marry. This is true of presbyters and deacons, two lower orders of clergy. If they do marry, they are expected to do so before being ordained as members of the clergy. Whereas some bishops in the early centuries of the church were married, in the sixth century, Eastern churches embraced the idea that monastics, who were unmarried, should become bishops. That practice has remained the norm, although the issue has often been debated.

Eastern Orthodox churches accept seven sacraments: the Eucharist; baptism; confirmation, which these churches call chrismation; ordination into the priesthood; penance, or confession and forgiveness of sins; marriage; and the anointing of oil on those who are suffering. Roman Catholics accept the same seven sacraments; Protestants generally only accept baptism and communion.

There are, however, differences in Orthodox and Catholic belief and practice regarding these sacraments. For example, Orthodox churches serve both bread and wine to those partaking in the Eucharist. For many centuries, Roman Catholics gave only bread to parishioners, although that practice began to change in the late twentieth century. Also, Orthodox practice combines baptism with chrismation, a sacrament that involves being anointed with holy oil. Both sacraments symbolize acceptance of the Holy Spirit. These sacraments are followed by receipt of the Eucharist—even for children. Roman Catholics and Protestants separate first communion and chrismation, which they call confirmation, from baptism. The years between baptism and the other two sacraments are filled with study so that the child can personally accept the faith.

The various Oriental Orthodox churches have their unique practices. For example, in the Syriac Orthodox Church, prayers are offered directly to Jesus rather than to God the Father through Jesus. The Eastern Catholic churches also have their distinct beliefs and practices. The Maronite Christians of Lebanon allow priests to marry, as do the various Byzantine Catholic churches. Like the Orthodox churches, the Byzantine Catholic churches use leavened (risen) bread in the Eucharist, not the unleavened bread of Roman Catholics.

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