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This is an accepted version of this page This is the latest accepted revision, reviewed on 26 February 2025. Second-largest Christian church This article is about the Eastern Orthodox Church as an institution. For its religion, doctrine and tradition, see Eastern Orthodoxy. For other uses of "Orthodox Church", see Orthodox Church (disambiguation). For other uses of "Greek Orthodox", see Greek ...
The Eastern Orthodox Church, officially the Orthodox Catholic Church and commonly known simply as the Orthodox Church is a communion composed of up to seventeen separate autocephalous (self-governing) hierarchical churches that profess Eastern Orthodoxy and recognise each other as canonical (regular) Eastern Orthodox Christian churches.
The Eastern Orthodox Church, in understanding itself to be the Body of Christ, and similarly in understanding the Christian life to lead to the unification in Christ of all members of his body, views the church as embracing all Christ's members, those now living on earth, and also all those through the ages who have passed on to the heavenly life.
Based on the numbers of adherents, the Eastern Orthodox Church (also known as Eastern Orthodoxy) is the second largest Christian communion in the world, after the Roman Catholic Church, with the most common estimates of baptised members being approximately 220 million.
Timeline showing the main autocephalous Eastern Orthodox Churches, from an Eastern Orthodox point of view, up to 2022. Greek Orthodoxy. Greek Orthodox Church of Antioch. The community and seat of the patriarchate according to Orthodox tradition was founded by St Peter and then given to St Ignatius, in what is now Turkey.
It is church doctrine that the priesthood must strive to fulfill the grace given to them with the gift of the "laying on of hands" in the most perfect that they can. But the Church teaches that the reality and effectiveness of the sacraments of the church, ministered by the presbyters, do not depend upon personal virtue, but upon the presence of Christ who acts in his church by the Holy Spirit.
The Oriental Orthodox Churches are Eastern Christian churches adhering to Miaphysite Christology, [1] [2] with approximately 50 million members worldwide. [3] [4] The Oriental Orthodox Churches adhere to the Nicene Christian tradition. Oriental Orthodoxy is one of the oldest branches in Christianity. [5]
On 10 April 2022, 200 priests from the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate) released an open request to the primates of the other autocephalous Eastern Orthodox Churches, asking them to convene a Council of Primates of the Ancient Eastern Churches at the Pan-Orthodox level and try Kirill for the heresy of preaching the "Doctrine of ...