One of the three major divisions of Christianity derived from the Byzantine Church; it comprises the Greek Orthodox Church, the Russian Orthodox Church and others
Principal Christian church in Egypt. Until the 19th century it was called simply the Egyptian Church. It agrees doctrinally with Eastern Orthodoxy except that it holds that Jesus has a purely divine nature and never became human, a belief the Council of Chalcedon rejected (see Monophysite heresy) in AD 451. After the Arab conquest (7th century), service books were written with Coptic and Arabic in parallel texts. Church government is democratic, and the patriarch, who resides in Cairo, is elected. There are congregations outside Egypt, especially in Australia and the U.S., and the church is in communion with the Ethiopian, Armenian, and Syrian Jacobite churches
The body of modern churches, including among others the Greek and Russian Orthodox, that is derived from the church of the Byzantine Empire, adheres to the Byzantine rite, and acknowledges the honorary primacy of the patriarch of Constantinople. Orthodox Church
Independent Christian patriarchate in Ethiopia. Traditionally thought to have been founded by the preaching of the apostle Matthew or the eunuch of the Acts of the Apostles, the church was established in the 4th century by St. Frumentius and his brother Aedesius. Based in Addis Ababa, the church adheres to Monophysite doctrine (see Monophysite heresy). It accepts the honorary primacy of the Coptic patriarch of Alexandria, who appointed its archbishops from the 12th century until 1959, when an autonomous Ethiopian patriarchate was established. Its customs include circumcision, rigorous fasting, and the participation of laypersons known as debtera, who perform liturgical music and dances and act as astrologers, scribes, and fortune-tellers. Its principal adherents are the Amhara and Tigray peoples of the northern and central highlands. See also Coptic Orthodox church
The state church of Greece, an autonomous part of the Eastern Orthodox Church. the main group of Christian churches in Eastern Europe and southwest Asia, which was formed in the 11th century by separating from the Catholic Church. The Russian Orthodox Church, the main Christian group in Russia, is closely related. orthodox. Independent Eastern Orthodox church of Greece. The term is sometimes used erroneously for Eastern Orthodoxy in general. It remained under the patriarch of Constantinople until 1833, when it became independent. It is governed by 67 metropolitan bishops, presided over by an archbishop
The Eastern Orthodox Church that is under the leadership of the patriarch of Russia and has autonomous branches in other countries. the main religious group of Russia. It is a Christian church that began in the 11th century by separating from the Catholic Church. The Orthodox Church has very complicated religious ceremonies in which the words are mostly sung rather than spoken, and the it is closely related to the Greek Orthodox Church. Orthodox. Eastern Orthodox church of Russia, its de facto national church. In 988 Prince Vladimir of Kiev (later St. Vladimir) embraced Byzantine Orthodoxy and ordered the baptism of his population. By the 14th century, the metropolitan of Kiev and all Russia (head of the Russian church) was residing in Moscow; dissatisfied western Russian principalities obtained temporary separate metropolitans, but authority was later recentralized under Moscow. In the 15th century the church, rejecting Metropolitan Isidore's acceptance of union with the Western church (see Council of Ferrara-Florence), appointed their own independent metropolitan. Moscow saw itself as the "third Rome" and the last bulwark of true Orthodoxy; in 1589 the head of the Russian church obtained the title patriarch, putting him on a level with the patriarchs of Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem. The reforms of Nikon caused a schism within the church (see Old Believers), and Peter I abolished the patriarchate in 1721, making church administration a department of the state. The patriarchate was reestablished in 1917, two months before the Bolshevik revolution, but under the soviets the church was deprived of its legal rights and practically suppressed. It saw a great resurgence following the collapse of the Soviet Union (1991). The Russian Orthodox Church in the U.S. became independent from Moscow in 1970