Health & Fitness
The Orthodox Christian Church
This is a continuation of the subject about the historical roots of Eastern Orthodox Christianity. Silence of the American pulpits.
The Name of the Church
The Church is referred to as the Greek Orthodox Church, the Eastern Orthodox Church, or simply the Orthodox Church. The word orthodox is derived from the Greek words orthos, meaning correct, and dokein, meaning to believe and to praise. So those who believe and worship correctly are known as Orthodox Christians.
The word Greek is used because Greek was the first language of Christianity. The New Testament was written in Greek and most of the important documents of the Early Church were written in Greek, which at that time was the universal language. It was Alexander the Great (366 B.C - 323 B. C.) who was mainly responsible for spreading the Greek language and culture all over the known world. The Church of Rome was also a Greek-speaking Church and the first missionaries to France and England were Greeks from Asia Minor. Latin did not become the official language of Western Christianity until a few centuries later.
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The Church is also called Eastern Orthodox, to distinguish it from the Church of the West, and to indicate that in past centuries her greatest work has been accomplished in the East.
According to the Creed, the Church is defined as the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church. One because our Lord Jesus Christ founded not many, but one Church, with the head Who is Christ; Holy because her aim, the sanctification and salvation of her members throuh the Sacraments, is holy; Catholic because the Church is universal in her mission and comprises the true believers in Christ of all places, peoples and times; Apostolic because she was built upon the foundation laid by the Apostles, from whom she has, without break or change, both her teachings and the succession of the gifts of the Holy Spirit.
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IMPORTANT NEWS FOR CHRISTIANS TO KNOW. If you are even slightly awake about the world news today, it is no surprise that Christians are being killed, raped, and brutalized throughtout the Islamic world. However, there is a place where you can go to escape the dreadful and relentless details of Christian annihilation by Islam. You can just go to your Church. Why is this happening in America? The answer is there are few religious leaders left in America. Instead we have chief-executive-officers who manage 501 (c)(3) institutions that have meetings on Sunday. In too many cases, Christianity has devolved into an hour's meeting that is supposed to make you feel good for a week. The pulpits are silent about this because it is not politically correct to talk about what the Muslim world is doing to Christianity.
+Fr. Constantine J. Simones, August 27, 2012.
