What is Orthodoxy?

Orthodox Christianity is the original Christian Church, founded by Jesus Christ and His Apostles nearly 2,000 years ago. The word “Orthodox” comes from the Greek words orthos (right, true) and doxa (belief, glory), meaning “right belief” or “right worship.”

We have preserved the faith, worship, and spiritual life handed down from the Apostles through an unbroken succession of bishops and saints. The Orthodox Church is the second-largest Christian communion in the world, with over 300 million faithful worldwide.

The Church of the apostles

On the day of Pentecost the Holy Spirit descended on the apostles, and the Church was born. That same Church — with the same faith and the same sacraments — is the Orthodox Church. The name is not a claim to superiority, but a responsibility: to keep what was received without adding to it or taking away.

In Britain, Orthodoxy often comes as a discovery — yet at the last count there were well over 400,000 Orthodox Christians here, and more and more British people are joining us. Our own parish belongs to the ancient Patriarchate of Antioch — the city where, the Acts of the Apostles records, “the disciples were first called Christians” — and worships in English here in Doncaster.

What we believe

• One God in Trinity. Father, Son and Holy Spirit — one God, three persons, the source and end of all things.
• Jesus Christ, true God and true man. Born of the Virgin Mary, crucified, risen from the dead — by his resurrection, death itself is overthrown.
• Scripture and Holy Tradition. The Bible is read within the living tradition of the Church that wrote, gathered and canonised it.
• The Holy Mysteries. Baptism, the Eucharist and the other sacraments are not symbols only, but a real participation in the life of God.
• The Mother of God and the saints. The Church spans heaven and earth; we honour those who have run the race before us and ask their prayers.
• The life of the world to come. The Christian hope is nothing less than the resurrection of the body and the renewal of all creation.

Beauty as the front door

Step into an Orthodox church and the first thing that meets you is not an argument but beauty: icons and candlelight, incense, unaccompanied singing that has carried these prayers for centuries. This is deliberate. Orthodoxy addresses the whole person — eyes, ears, body and heart as well as mind — because the whole person is what God saves. Worship is solemn, and it is also full of joy; the two are not opposites but companions, as anyone who has stood in an Orthodox church at Pascha (Easter) can tell you.

Understanding by participating

When two disciples asked Jesus where he was staying, he did not hand them a pamphlet. He said, “Come and see.” Orthodoxy has never been something you can learn only from books: you can only understand it by participating. You are welcome to come exactly as you are, stand with us, and see for yourself. No one will single you out, and no one expects you to know what to do.