Which Orthodox Church is closest to the rites, texts, rituals, beliefs, and traditions of early Christians? (I assume it would also be the oldest Orthodox Church, right?)
It seems that the two most prominent Orthodox Churches are the Greek Orthodox Church and the Russian Orthodox Church. (The Orthodox Church in America, if I remember correctly, has its origins with the Russian Orthodox Church.) I would not be surprised if one was the answer to the above.
For what it’s worth, I believe the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople is associated with the Greek Orthodox Church rather than, say, a separate Orthodox Church. (Unrelated to the above: what Orthodox Church did the See of Constantinople belong to before the invasion of Muslims? Was it always Greek?)
I dare say that’s a matter of debate, and a considerable degree of speculation. There are Protestant groups who claim passionately – and I imagine sincerely – that their liturgies and beliefs are closer to the liturgies and beliefs of the early church than anyone else’s.
If we’re looking at Orthodoxy, the Antiochan Orthodox Church must have a strong claim. The Church at Antioch was established before 50 AD. Only the Church at Jerusalem could claim to be older and it, of course, was thoroughly disrupted and largely destroyed at the sack of Jerusalem in AD 70, so Antioch has a good claim to be the oldest continually existing church. It’s liturgies, I believe, are still in Aramaic.
Perhaps I should clarify - which of the current Orthodox Churches have practices, beliefs, rites, etc., that most closely resembles those of early Christians?
Different Orthodox Churches came about at different times. I would assume that the oldest Orthodox Church in existence would have the most connections or heritage to early Christians.
Example: the Greek Orthodox Church would probably have more in common with early Christians than, say, the Orthodox Church in America.
I’m not asking about which Christian tradition is closest to early Christians or what the earliest Christians practiced.
Pretty much all Christian churches regard themselves as being a part of The Church which goes back to the time of Christ. The various Eastern Orthodox churches, as I understand it, see themselves as local manifestations of the Univeral Church. So the Greek Orthodox Church, for example, is that part of the universal church which is headed by the Patriarch of Constantinople, while the Russian Orthodox Church is that part of the Universal Church which is headed by the Patriarch of Moscow.
There has been a Patriarch of Constantinople for longer than there has been a Patriarch of Moscow, and in that sense the Greek Orthodox Church is older than the Russian. But that’s a bit like saying that, in the American Catholic Church, the Church in Baltimore is older than the Church in Rockville Center. It is, but so what?
If your looking for the autocephalous local church which has the longest record of continuous existence and organisation then, as I said, Antioch has a pretty strong claim.
It wouldn’t necessarily follow, of course, that their beliefs, practices and rites most closely follow those of the early Christians. The church could have existed continuously, but reformed its beliefs, practices and rites quite considerably. Nevertheless the chances that Antioch has faithfully preserved the beliefs, practices and rituals of the early church are probably greater than the chances that, say, Moscow has done so.
Um, without first answering the question of what the earliest Christians practiced, it’s impossible to answer the question of which current church is “closest”.
Anyway, it depends to a great extent on what you mean by “the practices and beliefs of early Christians”. There were many different groups of early Christians with many different practices and beliefs. Do you mean the Roman church of 300 AD, the Jewish Christians of 200AD, Paul’s churches of 50 AD, or the Jerusalem group of 40AD? You’ll get a different answer (presumably) in each case.
I’d probably vote for the Antiochan Orthodox as being the closest to the original as far as Orthodox churches go. I’ve never had the opportunity to visit one, but I’ve read a lot of material from their Evangelical wing, and I think the fact they have an Evangelical wing puts them closer to the original.
While this did not emerge until the 1800s, I would say that the Messianic Jews may well be reconstructing what the earliest Church was like in doctrine & worship.
I’ll add a vote for the Antiochenes too – most national Orthodox churches have a certain amount of “cultural accretion” pious practices (including the Antiochan) but they seem to have minimized the degree to which this is true. (As I understand, their liturgy is usually in Arabic, the vernacular of most Antiochan Orthodox communities, or adapted to the vernacular of the place they’re located.) And yes, forestalling the inevitable question, “Allah” is the proper term for the Holy Trinity addressed as “God” in Orthodox-use Arabic.
True. The early Acts church formed by the preaching of Peter and the other 11 disciples (Acts 2-15) was a form of God-ordained communism, a continuance of the command in Matt. 19 to “sell that thou hast, and give to the poor…” Those that held back anything in this respect, died. (Acts 5:1-5).
I suppose there are some monastic communities around the world that are attempting to emulate this model. The question is: Is anyone in the body of Christ called to live in this manner? Can anyone today claim to be a disciple of Christ who isn’t?
Ananias & Sapphira did not die because they held back. They died because they lied about it. Peter was very clear that they had the right to keep what they wanted, just be honest about it.
The communalism experiment only seems to have applied to the Jerusalem Church anyway. Yes, some Christians throughout history & today are called to such a life. Yes, there are plenty of true believers/disciples/Christians who aren’t.
NOT SO.
Read verse 4 again. Acts 5:4 Before you sold the field, it belonged to you. Even after you sold it, you could have used the money any way you wanted. Why did you think of doing this evil thing? You lied to God, not to men!"
Read verses 8 and 9. Acts 5:8 Peter said to her, “Tell me, how much money did you receive for your field? Was it this much?” Sapphira answered, “Yes, that was all we got for the field.” 9 Peter asked her, “Why did you and your husband agree to test the Spirit of the Lord? Listen! Do you hear those footsteps? The men who buried your husband are at the door! They will carry you out in the same way.”
Read Acts 5:1-10 which relates the whole account.
It is not about communism by any stretch of the text.
It was very clearly LYING !
Eh, I shall have to disagree. The Antiochians have just as much cultural accretion as the others, it’s just not always as obvious – they have lost their ancient Syriac rite, and the way they practice the Byzantine rite has certain peculiarities, mainly due to historical circumstances and the absolute Greek domination of that patriarchate in the past few centuries – things like not singing the canon anymore at matins, because the Greeks never bothered to translate them into Arabic. With a few exceptions in America, they are still just as ethnic as the next guy, and the flaming liberals of the Orthodox world as well.
All of the Orthodox churches maintain exactly the same belief, and, with very few exceptions (the Old Believers and the handful of Western-rite churches), practice the exact same rite, according to one of two recensions. The Orthodox Church is striking in its liturgical uniformity – so much that it rivals Roman Catholicism immediately prior to Vatican II. Variations in practice are so miniscule as to be hardly worth noticing – we’re talking about things like whether matins is served in the morning or the evening, or whether the bishop’s throne is set behind the altar or to the side of it. Pious customs do differ, but every church has just as many of them as the next one, whether it’s Antiochians and their kneeling at the epiclesis and raising the hands at the Lord’s Prayer, or the Russians and kissing the chalice and drinking warmed wine after communion, or the Serbians and their Slava service, or Georgians and singing the Alilo. The different churches have different music, but the texts are the same. No single Orthodox church is “closer” to the practices of the original Christians, except in terms of time of origin, in which case the honor would have to go to the Church of Jerusalem, which nevertheless is solidly Byzantine rite.
Looking at rites more broadly, we find that all rites have undergone significant evolution. You might say that the Syriacs (Jacobite or Assyrian?) have kept closest to the original liturgies – but they have dozens of anaphoras that obviously are not original, and anyways, the early Christians worshipped in Greek. So are the Greeks closest? Their liturgy has undergone accretion after accretion, and recension after recension – the Divine Liturgy in St. John Chrysostom’s time would be scarcely recognizable as the one practiced today. The Latin rites, especially the Ambrosian, are fairly unadorned – but still have heavy Gallican influence, are in Latin not Greek, and manifestly have accretions as well as the peculiar obsession with Eucharistic piety. The Armenian rite has its own peculiarities, overlaid with a heavy Latinate influence. The Coptic rite has been Egyptianized out the wazoo, and the Ethiopian rite is heavily Judaized. So which is closest? None of them, really – all have the same basic structure, but all have been heavily influenced by their surrounding cultures and theologies, and all have changed much in their externals in 2000 years.
The See of Constantinople is its own Church, and has been since the early days of the Byzantine empire. It was the seat of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, “oikoumene” referring to the “World” – the Roman Empire. It is the mother church of most of today’s Orthodox churches, the only exceptions being the other original sees of Antioch, Alexandria, and Jerusalem, and the church of Georgia, which had its origins with Antioch. The “Greek Orthodox” in America have as their chief hierarch the Ecumenical Patriarch, but there is also a separate Church of Greece, formed in the 1800s when Greece received its independence from the Ottomans.
Both have the same belief and follow the same rite, and the fact that they are two jurisdictions is purely due to historical accident and phyletistic thinking.
There are several churches of Antioch, all of which have continuity back to the beginning. There’s the Eastern Orthodox, who use Greek and Arabic and follow the Byzantine rite, the Jacobites, who use West Syriac and Arabic and follow the West Syriac rite, and the Catholic Melkites (Byzantine) and Maronites (who have their own rite, heavily Latinized). Being Orthodox, I of course believe the Eastern Orthodox have the best claim to originality, because I believe they have preserved the original faith. A Jacobite would naturally believe that his church has preserved the faith, and a Melkite or Maronite would believe that their churches, by being in communion with Rome, have preserved the faith.
I gladly defer to your expertise, sir – I spoke from my impressions. Although I was greatly amused by the description of the Antiochenes as “the flaming liberals of Orthodoxy” – it’s about equivalent to referring to O’Reilly as “the flaming liberal of the Modern Conservative Movement.”
[QUOTE=FriarTed]
Ananias & Sapphira did not die because they held back. They died because they lied about it. Peter was very clear that they had the right to keep what they wanted, just be honest about it.
You’re right, but this does not negate the fact that selling out and holding all things common was a requirement to be in fellowship under this program. In the Lord’s final commandment to the original disciples (minus Judas) in Matthew 28, he instructs them to: “Go ye therefore, and teach all nations…Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you…” (verses 19,20). One of those “things” was to sell out; to “forsake all” (Matt. 19:27). I can find nothing there that says one could skirt this requirement and still qualify as a disciple.
As someone else rightly observed, this way of living was a particular requirement for the Jerusalem church. I do not believe it was meant to be carried over into the church in the world today. If one follows the course of things in the Acts, it is obvious that about the middle of the letter, the preeminance of the 12 and the Jerusalem program gives way to Paul (Saul), who, in chapter 13, is separated out from this program (along with Barnabas) to begin a new work. Save for a couple of references, the rest of the letter concerns this work. Statements from Paul’s epistles, e.g., 1 Cor. 5:10; 11:34; 1 Thess. 4:11; 1 Tim. 5:8, indicate that the seperatist, communal style of living practiced in the early Acts has given way to living among the rest of the world, and to individuals providing for themselves and their own households.
the way i usually describe the differences between the various flavours of orthodoxy is using jello. jello is always jello, sometimes it is grape (greek) jello, sometimes it is cherry (constantinople) jello, sometimes it is strawberry (serbian) jello, but basicly it is jello.
the orthodox church for the most part (except in the us, canada, and slavic areas) has served in the language of the country or people rather than a universal language, ie latin. st. nicholas of japan’s translation of church slavonic to japanese is highly praised, st. innocent of alaska translated church slavonic to various alaskan languages. i am very amazed at the language skills of many orthodox priests. my priest can go from french, to latin, to greek, to slavonic, to english in one liturgy. what language the service is in doesn’t “date” a church, it flavours the jello.
i can go into any orthodox church and no matter the language, know exactly where in the service i am within a few minutes. with very few exceptions, ie a feast or tonal antiphon instead of a psalm antiphon, all services are exactly alike.
as far as closest to early church, for the most part theologically there haven’t been many changes since the last ecumenical council. there have been a “loosening” of some rules. women are allowed to sing in church these days… amoung many others things. having a female choir director would have had the early church fleeing from incoming lightening bolts. now it is unthinkable not to have women singing and leading choir.
quite a few of the changes have to do with women and their role in the church. the changes may horrify the early church fathers… but probably not the early church mothers.
I’m not sure if you think the distinction was a transfer from the Twelve Apostes Jewish Church Dispensation to the Paulian Gentile Church Dispensation or not (I think that’s what Polycarp was charging you with in the UCC Ad thread). I think it was more a matter of practicality- the Jerusalem Church was a special case in several areas.
1.) It would have to provide for the new converts among the Festival attendees who did not live in Jerusalem. You come from Persia or Ethiopia to Jerusalem for Pentecost, you hear the Gift of Tongues, you accept Christ after Peter’s sermon- ya gotta stay a while to get discipled in the faith before heading back home.
2.) Jerusalem believers were targeted by the Sanhedrin, so had to keep their assets liquid for quick flight, and were wise to pool their resources so that even in peaceful times, the Church could provide for their members when times got tough.
3.) The Jerusalem Church knew sometime within the Generation, it would have to pack up & get out to make way for the City’s Judgment through Rome. That happened when the High Priest Ananus committed the Abomination of Desolation around 62 AD by instigating the murder of James (Jacob) bar-Joseph, brother of Jesus, Bishop of the City’s Church, on the Temple grounds.
I’m going to bump this thread for the purpose of wishing ybeayf and rocking chair a most joyous Theophany, and to everyone else a festive Twelfth Night and/or a happy Epiphany, according to their tastes in theology and celebration.
::: shooes out leaping lords, dancing ladies, swimming swans, collie birds, et al. :::
