Early Church " (
fish) inscription from ancient
Ephesus|210x210px
Paul and the
Apostles travelled extensively throughout the
Roman Empire, including Asia Minor,
establishing churches in major communities, with the first churches appearing in
Jerusalem and the
Holy Land, then in
Antioch,
Ethiopia,
Egypt,
Rome,
Alexandria,
Athens,
Thessalonica,
Illyricum, and
Byzantium, which centuries later would become prominent as the
New Rome. Christianity
encountered considerable resistance in the Roman Empire, mostly because its adherents refused to comply with the demands of the Roman state—often even when their lives were threatened—by offering sacrifices to the pagan gods. Despite persecution, skepticism, and initial social stigma, the Christian Church spread, particularly following the
conversion of Emperor Constantine I in AD 312. • The
Second Ecumenical Council was held at Constantinople in 381, presided over by the Patriarchs of Alexandria and Antioch, with 150 bishops, defining the nature of the Holy Spirit against those asserting His inequality with the other persons of the Trinity. • The
Third Ecumenical Council is that of Ephesus in 431, presided over by the Patriarch of Alexandria, with 250 bishops, which affirmed that Mary is truly "Birthgiver" or "Mother" of God (
Theotokos), contrary to the teachings of
Nestorius. • The
Fourth Ecumenical Council is that of Chalcedon in 451, Patriarch of Constantinople presiding, 500 bishops, affirmed that Jesus is truly God and truly man, without mixture of the two natures, contrary to
Monophysite teaching. • The
Fifth Ecumenical Council is the second of Constantinople in 553, interpreting the decrees of Chalcedon and further explaining the relationship of the two natures of Jesus; it also condemned the alleged teachings of
Origen on the pre-existence of the soul, etc. • The
Sixth Ecumenical Council is the third of Constantinople in 681; it declared that Christ has two wills of his two natures, human and divine, contrary to the teachings of the
Monothelites. • The
Seventh Ecumenical Council was called under the Empress Regent
Irene of Athens in 787, known as the second of Nicaea. It supports the
veneration of
icons while forbidding their worship. It is often referred to as "The Triumph of Orthodoxy". There are also two other councils which are considered ecumenical by some Eastern Orthodox: • The
Fourth Council of Constantinople was called in 879. It restored
Photius to his
See in Constantinople and condemned any alteration of the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed of 381. • The
Fifth Council of Constantinople was actually a series of councils held between 1341 and 1368. It affirmed the
hesychastic theology of
Gregory Palamas and condemned the philosopher
Barlaam of Calabria.
Other major councils In addition to these councils, there have been a number of other significant councils meant to further define the Eastern Orthodox position. They are the Synods of Constantinople, in
1484, 1583,
1755, 1819, and
1872, the
Synod of Iași in 1642, and the Pan-Orthodox
Synod of Jerusalem in 1672. Another council convened in
June 2016 to discuss many modern phenomena, other Christian confessions, Eastern Orthodoxy's relation with other religions and fasting disciplines.
Roman and Byzantine Empire , the largest church in the world and patriarchal basilica of
Constantinople for nearly a thousand years, later converted into a
mosque, then a museum, then back to a mosque
Constantinople is generally considered to be the centre and the "cradle of Orthodox
Christian civilisation". Beginning with subsequent
Byzantine architecture, Hagia Sophia became the paradigmatic
Orthodox church form and its architectural style was emulated by
Ottoman mosques a thousand years later. Being the
episcopal see of the
ecumenical patriarch of Constantinople, it remained the world's largest cathedral for nearly a thousand years, until
Seville Cathedral was completed in 1520.
Hagia Sophia has been described as "holding a unique position in the
Christian world", and it is considered the epitome of
Byzantine architecture and is said to have "changed the history of architecture".
Early schisms There are the "
Nestorian" churches resulted from the reaction of the
Council of Ephesus (431), which are the earliest surviving Eastern Christian churches that keep the faith of only the first two ecumenical councils, i.e., the
First Council of Nicaea (325) and the
First Council of Constantinople (381) as legitimate. "Nestorian" is an outsider's term for a tradition that predated the influence of
Nestorius, the origin of which might lie in certain sections of the
School of Antioch or via Nestorius' teachers
Theodore of Mopsuestia or
Diodore of Tarsus. The modern incarnation of the "
Nestorian Church" is commonly referred to as "the Assyrian Church" or fully as the
Assyrian Church of the East. The church in Egypt (
Patriarchate of Alexandria) split into two groups following the
Council of Chalcedon (451), over a dispute about the relation between the divine and human natures of
Jesus. Eventually this led to each group
anathematising the other. Those that remained in communion with the other patriarchs (by accepting the Council of Chalcedon) are known today as the
Greek Orthodox Church of Alexandria, where the adjective "Greek" refers to their ties to the Greek-speaking culture of the Byzantine Empire. Those who disagreed with the findings of the Council of Chalcedon were the majority in Egypt. Today, they are known as the
Coptic Orthodox Church, having maintained a separate patriarchate. The Coptic Orthodox Church is currently the largest Christian church in Egypt and the entire
Middle East. Likewise, in the
Levant and
Mesopotamia, another schism occurred to the
Patriarchate of Antioch, resulting in the establishment of two parallel patriarchates which endure today: the
Syriac Orthodox Church of Antioch and the
Greek Orthodox Church of Antioch. Those who disagreed with the Council of Chalcedon are called
Oriental Orthodox to distinguish them from the
Eastern Orthodox, who accepted the Council of Chalcedon. Oriental Orthodox are also sometimes referred to as "non-Chalcedonians" or "anti-Chalcedonians". The Oriental Orthodox Church denies that it is monophysite and prefers the term
miaphysite, to denote the "united" nature of Jesus (two natures united into one composite nature) consistent with Cyril's theology: "The term union ... signifies the concurrence in one reality of those things which are understood to be united" and "the Word who is ineffably united with it in a manner beyond all description" (
Cyril of Alexandria,
On the Unity of Christ). This is also defined in the
Coptic liturgy, where it is mentioned "He made it [his humanity] one with his divinity without mingling, without confusion and without alteration", and "His divinity parted not from his humanity for a single moment nor a twinkling of an eye." They do not accept the teachings of
Eutyches, or
Eutychianism. Both the Eastern Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox churches formally believe themselves to be the continuation of the true church.
Conversion of the South and East Slavs In the ninth and tenth centuries, Christianity made great inroads into pagan Europe, including
Bulgaria (864) and later
Kievan Rus' (988). This work was made possible by
Cyril and Methodius of
Thessaloniki, two brothers chosen by
Byzantine emperor Michael III to fulfil the request of
Rastislav of Moravia for teachers who could minister to the Moravians in their own language. Cyril and Methodius began translating the
divine liturgy, other liturgical texts, and the
Gospels along with some other
scriptural texts into local languages; with time, as these translations were copied by speakers of other dialects, the hybrid literary language
Church Slavonic was created. Originally sent to convert the Slavs of
Great Moravia, Cyril and Methodius were forced to compete with
Frankish missionaries from the Roman diocese; their
disciples were driven out of Great Moravia in AD 886 and emigrated to
Bulgaria. in
Constantinople, a miniature from the Radziwiłł Chronicle'' After the
Christianisation of Bulgaria in 864,
the disciples of
Cyril and Methodius in
Bulgaria, the most important being
Clement of Ohrid and
Naum of Preslav, were of great importance to the Orthodox faith in the
First Bulgarian Empire. In a short time they managed to prepare and instruct the future
Bulgarian clergy into the biblical texts and in AD 870 the
Fourth Council of Constantinople granted the Bulgarians the oldest organised
autocephalous Slavic Orthodox Church, which shortly thereafter became Patriarchate. The success of the
conversion of the Bulgarians facilitated the conversion of the
East Slavs. A major event in this effort was the development of the
Cyrillic script in
Bulgaria, at the
Preslav Literary School in the ninth century; this script, along with the liturgical
Old Church Slavonic, also called
Old Bulgarian, was declared official in
Bulgaria in 893. The work of Cyril and Methodius and their disciples had a major impact on the
Serbs as well. They accepted Christianity collectively along familial and tribal lines, a gradual process that occurred between the seventh and ninth centuries. In commemoration of their baptisms, each Serbian family or tribe began to celebrate an exclusively Serbian custom called
Slava (patron saint) in a special way to honour the saint on whose day they received the sacrament of
baptism. It is the most solemn day of the year for all Serbs of the Orthodox faith and has played a role of vital importance in the history of the Serbian people. Slava remains a celebration of the conversion of the Serbian people, which the church blessed and proclaimed a church institution. The missionaries to the East and
South Slavs had great success in part because they used the people's native language rather than
Greek, the predominant language of the Byzantine Empire, or
Latin, as the Roman priests did.
Great Schism (1054) In the 11th century, what was recognised as the
Great Schism took place between
Rome and
Constantinople, which led to separation between the Church of the West, the Catholic Church, and the Eastern Byzantine churches, now the Orthodox. There were doctrinal issues like the
filioque clause and the authority of the
Pope involved in the split, but these were greatly exacerbated by political factors of both Church and state, and by cultural and linguistic differences between Latins and Greeks. Regarding
papal supremacy, the Eastern half grew disillusioned with the Pope's centralisation of power, as well as his blatant attempts of excluding the Eastern half in regard to papal approvals. It had previously been the case that the emperor would have a say when a new Pope was elected, but towards the high Middle Ages, the Christians in Rome were slowly consolidating power and removing Byzantine influence. However, even before this exclusionary tendency from the West, well before 1054, the Eastern and Western halves of the Church were in perpetual conflict, particularly during the periods of Eastern
iconoclasm and the
Photian schism. , the capital of the Eastern Orthodox–controlled
Byzantine Empire, in 1204 The final breach is often considered to have arisen after the capture and sacking of Constantinople by the
Fourth Crusade in 1204; the final break with Rome occurred circa 1450. The sacking of
Church of Holy Wisdom and establishment of the
Latin Empire as a seeming attempt to supplant the Orthodox
Byzantine Empire in 1204 is viewed with some rancour to the present day. In 2004,
Pope John Paul II extended a formal apology for the sacking of Constantinople in 1204, which had also been strongly condemned by the Pope at the time,
Innocent III; the apology was formally accepted by
Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople. However, many items stolen during this time, such as
holy relics and riches, are still held in various European cities, particularly
Venice. Reunion was attempted twice, at the 1274
Second Council of Lyon and the 1439
Council of Florence. The Council of Florence briefly reestablished communion between East and West, which lasted until after the fall of Constantinople in 1453. In each case, however, the councils were rejected by the Orthodox people as a whole, and the union of Florence also became very politically difficult after Constantinople came under Ottoman rule. However, in the time since, several local Orthodox Christian churches have renewed union with Rome, known as the
Eastern Catholic Churches. Recent decades have seen a renewal of ecumenical spirit and dialogue between the Catholic and Orthodox churches.
Greek Church under Ottoman rule The Byzantine Empire never fully recovered from the sack of Constantinople in 1204. Over the next two centuries, it entered a precipitous decline in both territory and influence. In 1453, a much-diminished Byzantine Empire fell to the
Ottoman Empire, ending what was once the most powerful state in the Orthodox Christian world, if not in all
Christendom. By this time
Egypt, another major centre of Eastern Christianity, had been under
Muslim control for some seven centuries; most Eastern Orthodox communities
across southeastern Europe gradually came under Ottoman rule by the 16th century. Under the Ottomans, the
Greek Orthodox Church acquired substantial power as an autonomous
millet. The ecumenical patriarch was the religious and administrative ruler of the
Rûm, an Ottoman administrative unit meaning "Roman", which encompassed all
Orthodox subjects of the Empire regardless of ethnicity. While legally subordinate to Muslims and
subject to various restrictions, the Orthodox community was generally tolerated until the rise of nationalist movements in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and left to govern its own internal affairs, both religiously and legally. Until the empire's dissolution in the early 20th century, Orthodox Christians would remain the largest non-Muslim minority, and at times among the wealthiest and most politically influential. in Smyrna in 1922 During the period 1914–1923 in Asia Minor (Anatolia) the
Greek genocide took place by the Ottomans. During the Greek genocide, many Orthodox Christians were persecuted and killed. The culmination of the martyrdom was the
Asia Minor Catastrophe with the killing of a large number of Orthodox. Among them, 347 clergymen of the Smyrna region and
Metropolitan of Smyrna Chrysostomos were tortured and killed. The period 1923–1924 was followed by the obligatory
population exchange between Greece and Turkey.
Russian Orthodox Church in the Russian Empire , a main cathedral of the
Finnish Orthodox Church in
Helsinki, Finland, was built
under Imperial Russia. By the time most Orthodox communities came under Muslim rule in the mid-15th century, Orthodoxy was very strong in Russia, which had maintained close cultural and political ties with the Byzantine Empire; roughly two decades after the fall of Constantinople,
Ivan III of Russia married
Sophia Palaiologina, a niece of the last Byzantine Emperor
Constantine XI, and styled himself Tsar ("Caesar") or
imperator. In 1547, his grandson
Ivan IV, a devout Orthodox Christian, cemented the title as "Tsar of All Rus", establishing Russia's first centralised state with divinely appointed rulers. In 1589, the Patriarchate of Constantinople granted autocephalous status to Moscow, the capital of what was now the largest Orthodox Christian polity; the city thereafter referred to itself as the
Third Rome —the cultural and religious heir of Constantinople. Until 1666, when Patriarch Nikon was deposed by the
tsar, the
Russian Orthodox Church had been independent of the State. In 1721, the first Russian Emperor,
Peter I, abolished completely the patriarchate and effectively made the church a department of the government, ruled by a
most holy synod composed of senior bishops and lay bureaucrats appointed by the Emperor himself. Over time, Imperial Russia would style itself a protector and patron of all Orthodox Christians, especially those within the Ottoman Empire. For nearly 200 years, until the
Bolsheviks'
October Revolution of 1917, the Russian Orthodox Church remained, in effect, a governmental agency and an instrument of tsarist rule. It was used to varying degrees in imperial campaigns of
Russification, and was even allowed to levy
taxes on
peasants. The church's close ties with the state came to a head under Nicholas I (1825–1855), who explicitly made Orthodoxy a
core doctrine of imperial unity and legitimacy. The Orthodox faith became further tied to Russian identity and nationalism, while the church was further subordinated to the interests of the state. Consequently, Russian Orthodox Church, along with the imperial regime to which it belonged, came to be presented as an
enemy of the people by the
Bolsheviks and other Russian revolutionaries.
Eastern Orthodox churches under Communist rule After the
October Revolution of 1917, part of the clergy of the Russian Orthodox Church fled abroad to escape
Bolshevik persecutions, founding an
independent church in exile, which reunified with its Russian counterpart in 2007. Others formed the present-day
Orthodox Church in America, and the
American Orthodox Catholic Church (the latter whose bishops were considered
episcopi vagantes, yet also accepted back into mainstream Orthodoxy). Some actions against Orthodox priests and believers along with
execution included
torture, being sent to
prison camps,
labour camps or
mental hospitals. In the first five years after the Bolshevik revolution, 28 bishops and 1,200 priests were executed. After Nazi Germany's attack on the Soviet Union in 1941,
Joseph Stalin revived the Russian Orthodox Church to intensify patriotic support for the war effort. By 1957 about 22,000 Russian Orthodox churches had become active. However, in 1959,
Nikita Khrushchev initiated his own campaign against the Russian Orthodox Church and forced the closure of about 12,000 churches. It is estimated that 50,000 clergy had been executed between the revolution and the end of the Khrushchev era. Members of the church hierarchy were jailed or forced out, their places taken by docile clergy, many of whom had ties with the KGB. By 1985 fewer than 7,000 churches remained active. In some other Communist states such as Romania, the
Romanian Orthodox Church as an organisation enjoyed relative freedom and even prospered, albeit under strict secret police control. That, however, did not rule out demolishing churches and monasteries as part of broader
systematisation (urban planning), and state persecution of individual believers. As an example of the latter, Romania stands out as a country which ran a
specialised institution where many Orthodox (along with people of other faiths) were subjected to
psychological punishment or torture and
mind control experimentation in order to force them give up their religious convictions. However, this was only supported by one faction within the regime, and lasted only three years. The Communist authorities closed down the prison in 1952, and punished many of those responsible for abuses (twenty of them were sentenced to death).
Post-communism to 21st century Since the
dissolution of the Soviet Union, and the subsequent
Fall of Communist governments across the
Orthodox world, there has been marked growth in Christian Orthodoxy, particularly in Russia. According to the
Pew Research Religion & Public Life Project, between 1991 and 2008, the share of Russian adults identifying as Orthodox Christian rose from 31 per cent to 72 per cent, based on analysis of three waves of data (1991, 1998 and 2008) from the
International Social Survey Programme (ISSP), a collaborative effort involving social scientists in about 50 countries. Pew research conducted in 2017 found a doubling in the global Orthodox population since the early 20th century, with the greatest resurgence in Russia. In the former Soviet Union—where the largest Orthodox communities live—self-identified Orthodox Christians generally report low levels of observance and piety: In Russia, only 6% of Orthodox Christian adults reported attending church at least weekly, 15% say religion is "very important" in their lives, and 18% say they pray daily; other former Soviet republics display similarly low levels of religious observance.
Moscow–Constantinople schisms 1996 Since 1923, the
Orthodox Church of Estonia separated from the
Russian Orthodox Church due to the imprisonment of
Patriarch Tikhon of Moscow, and the church in the
Republic of Estonia falling out of communication with the Russian Church. They petitioned to be placed under direct control of the
Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, operating as an autonomous church. In 1944 the
Soviet Union annexed Estonia and outlawed the Orthodox Church of Estonia, forcefully bringing their churches back under the control of the Moscow Patriarch. However, the church's Primate, Metropolitan Aleksander, fled to
Sweden with 21 clergymen and 8,000 followers and established a synod there operating there throughout the
Cold War. In 1993, the synod of the Orthodox Church of Estonia in Exile was re-registered and on 20 February 1996,
Bartholomew I of Constantinople restored the church's position as subordinate to Constantinople, not Moscow.
Patriarch Alexy II of Moscow, who had been born in Estonia, rejected this loss of territory, and severed ties with Patriarch Bartholomew on February 23, removing his name from the diptychs. The two sides would then negotiate in
Zürich, and a settlement was reached on 16 May 1996. In it, the ethnically Estonian population of Estonia would be under the jurisdiction of the
Estonian Apostolic Orthodox Church, while the ethnically Russian population of Estonia would be under the jurisdiction of the
Estonian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate. After signing the document the Russian Church restored communion with the Ecumenical Patriarchate. The
Soviet Union, initially, had a policy of repression against the Orthodox Church, regardless of its denomination. However, after the start of the
Nazi Invasion of the Soviet Union,
Joseph Stalin transformed the Russian Church into a propaganda tool to intensify patriotic support for the war effort. Following Soviet victory in the war, various autonomous and Independent Orthodox churches around eastern Europe were forcefully integrated or reintegrated into the Russian Church, including the church in Ukraine. Many of the church's leaders at this time were installed and closely monitored by the
NKVD to ensure the church's support for the Soviet Union. This situation led to the rise of rival, anti-Russian and anti-Soviet churches within Ukraine, including the
Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church (UAOC), founded in 1917 which declared itself the restored autonomous church that existed prior to 1686 but had been eradicated within Soviet Ukraine by the 1930s. The church was largely supported by Ukrainian émigrés and diaspora, and was restored as a legally recognised church by the Ukrainian government in 1991. In 1992, the
Ukrainian Orthodox Church – Kyiv Patriarchate (UOC-KP) came into existence, being founded by members of the Russian Church
defrocked for insubordination, alongside support with the Ukrainian émigré community. The church submitted a request for Ukrainian autocephaly at its founding synod in Kyiv in 1992. These churches were competing with the
Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC-MP), the Russian Church in Ukraine. On 11 October 2018, the
Holy Synod of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople revoked the Russian Church's letter of issue, allowing them to ordain the Metropolitan of Kyiv, re-established a
stauropegion in Kyiv, and lifted the Russian Church's excommunication of members of the UAOC and the UOC-KP. In response, on 15 October, the
Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church severed all ties with the
Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople and barred all members of the Russian Church from receiving communion or sacraments from any churches with ties to the Ecumenical Patriarchate. On 15 December 2018, the UAOC and UOC-KP voted to merge in the
Unification council of the Eastern Orthodox churches of Ukraine, forming the restored
Orthodox Church of Ukraine, with
Epiphanius I of Ukraine, of the UOC-KP, becoming the first primate of the unified church. On 5 January 2019, Bartholomew I signed the official
tomos that granted
autocephaly to the Orthodox Church of Ukraine. In addition to severing ties with the Ecumenical Patriarchate, the Russian Church has also severed communion with Archbishop
Ieronymos II of Athens primate of the
Church of Greece,
Patriarch Theodore II of Alexandria, and Archbishop
Chrysostomos II of
Cyprus. In response to the severing of ties with the Ecumenical Patriarchate, the
Archdiocese of Russian Orthodox Churches in Western Europe (AROCWE), voted to dissolve itself, although the vote failed, it resulted in a split in AROCWE, with several churches leaving to form the "Vicariate of Russian Tradition of the Metropolis of France", while , head of the AROCWE, personally joined the Russian Church. After the
2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, the UOC-MP severed all ties with the Russian Church. == Organisation and leadership ==