The Orthodox Faith
What is the Orthodox Church?
Many are not too sure what the Orthodox Church is, or what Orthodox Christians actually believe.
The Orthodox Church is the Christian Church of our Lord Jesus Christ which He kept as His own throughout her history and challenges. We confess One loving God in three Persons: **Father, Son and Holy Spirit**, The Trinity, one in essence and inseparable.
God’s Creation and Humanity
In the beginning, God the Father through His Son in the Holy Spirit made all of the visible and invisible things and beings. The crown of His creation is humanity, both male and female, because He made us to be His image, to be mirrors of His likeness by being in a loving relationship with Him and with one another.
But the Bible tells us that we chose to go our own way and to be our own gods and not only that but also to serve our own self rather than others by all sorts of bad things called sin.
God’s Love and Salvation
"But God is love and did not want to leave us in our mess."
God came down from Heaven through the greatest representative of humanity: **the Most Holy and Ever-Virgin Mary**, the Mother of God the Son made flesh. God the Son became a human baby and was called **Jesus** which means ‘’The Lord saves’’.
This is why in most Orthodox Church temples you will find painted on the central front wall the Virgin Mary enthroned with Christ. We do not adore the Ever-Virgin Mary as God, but we surely venerate and very highly acclaim her as humanity’s hero because she gave us our Saviour.
Jesus died on the cross and shed His blood for the forgiveness of our sins; He conquered death and Hell and on the third day He rose again.
In Orthodox temples, you will always find the crucifixion and an icon of the risen Christ going down to Hades to free Adam and Eve. Christ offers us our life with God back so we can walk with Him again.
The Church and the Holy Spirit
After ascending back to Heaven, the Lord Jesus Christ sent us the **Holy Spirit** so we could have enough power to live this new life and be connected with God through the Church.
The successors of the apostles are the bishops helped by local priests and clergy. As a community, we love one another and help each other walk with God.
† The Holy Sacraments
These include Baptism in which we are joined to the Church, Chrismation in which we receive the gifts of the Holy Spirit, and the Eucharist in which we receive the Precious body and blood of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
Explore the Sacraments
St. Ignatius of Antioch
Orthodox Worship and Prayer
The way Orthodox people pray together in their temples grew out of the way Jesus, the apostles, and the first Christians prayed in the Jerusalem Temple and synagogues. Many things have been added and adapted, but we mainly pray the same way Christians originally prayed.
An Invitation
There are so many other things we could talk about. Our priest would be happy to have a conversation with you.
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