The Orthodox Church: A Concise Introduction
1. Welcome to the family of God, who embraces people (living and departed), angels, and the whole universe, and in which you will feel the joy of resurrection; Christ is risen, alive, and has conquered death. Here, the Divine Liturgy gives joy to our fallen ancestors’ souls. Here, we are freed from the past, from the fear of punishment, death, and every influence and bondage imposed on us by local conditions of place, time, and spiritual forces. Our lives take on a whole new meaning.
2. The Church is the most perfect family. Christ (fully God and man) is the head, and we are all the members. In the Divine Liturgy, we realize that Christ’s glorious kingdom is revealed in this family through the grace of the resurrection. We come to the temple and bring along the whole of creation out of love (for creation, groaning, and suffering still cannot bring itself) to God, the names of those we love (relatives, friends, and all the departed), and our hopes and sorrows. We offer them with the hands of the priest, but Christ is the real invisible priest; it is He offers them, but He also offers Himself.
3. But to whom does Christ offer up the world? To the Father, who receives our gifts and offers us in return what He loves most: His only begotten Son, who became man, that He might be like us and unite us to Him. The Father sends the Holy Spirit, who is also God, and a) transforms our gifts, bread, and wine into the living body and blood of Christ; b) unites us to one another as one in the body of Christ. By receiving His body and blood, we are united with Christ, and He is with us with our whole being and every cell of our body. Furthermore, the Holy Spirit connects us to the story of Christ, how He became man, taught, was crucified, resurrected, ascended, and will come again in the glory of His kingdom.
4. Do we have three separate Gods? No, God is one; we do not enumerate (as in arithmetic, three objects) but distinguish within the unity. God is one (but not alone), exists, and lives always as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Always together, distinguished, not confused, but always united, having all things in common, indivisible and co-equal. God is the Father, God is the Son of the Father, and God is the Holy Spirit. How do we know this? It is impossible to know what God is, although we have evidence of His existence. Christ, the Son of God, has revealed to us how God is–that God is uniquely His Father, and that the Holy Spirit rests and is fully manifested in the Son, proceeding from the Father.
5. Knowing the above is necessary because God calls us to exist in the way He exists, that is, as coexistence. God is not a solitary dictator but a communion of love.
6. Our knowledge of God is not based on physical or biological concepts, but we understand Him through relationships: we know God as the Father of Jesus. Similarly, when we get to know other people, we also identify them through relationships, such as father, wife, and children, rather than just seeing them as abstract individuals.
7. God brought everything (time, space, plants, animals) out of nothing into being, out of love, not necessity. God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light, etc. … God created man with unique creative energy (Genesis 2:7 “then the LORD God formed man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life,; and the man became a living being”). “In our image, according to our likeness,” that is, as an existence that should exist in the same way that God exists, that can freely relate in a loving relationship, like the love of the Son to the Father. Christ is the perfect image of God. Man is the priest of creation and must offer it up to God.
8. Moreover, God’s grace holds into existence, blesses, permeates everything, and gives life. God did not leave the world, like someone who made a clock and left it.
9. God would become man by His extravagant love. God had a plan for us, namely, that man, as the priest of creation, should unite all things, each in its order and hierarchy, into the body of Christ by the grace of the Holy Spirit.
10. By misusing his freedom, man saw God as power, not love. Therefore, man tried to antagonize God by enslaving nature and breaking harmony. All of creation was disturbed and broken up. Sin, as a disease, entered our existence. Death came as a separation and a brake on the wickedness that prevailed everywhere. Existence became an endless, incurable pain.
11. God has not abandoned us (Acts 14:17: “Though he leaves not his lovingkindness, from heaven he hath given you good things to teach you and fruitfulness, giving you food and gladness for your hearts”). He wrote in the hearts of all the first imperfect, simple law; He tried to educate us so that we would not forget the work we neglected; He planted in our hearts the desire to liberate all things, to unite all things with God. Our ancestors tried, in touching ways, with ancient religions, sacrifices, morality, and cultivation. But man cannot achieve this; it is a gift from God.
12. The Son of God was born a genuinely perfect man (without ceasing to be God) from the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary. Jesus lived humbly, taught, healed, resurrected people, and revealed the right way, which in essence is Him. Finally, on the night before being arrested, Jesus freely shared Himself as wine and bread, so that we might be joined and united with Him, the Bread of Life.
13. For wicked men couldn’t tolerate in their midst the perfect Master, and so they put Him to a painful death on the cross. They thought that wickedness had conquered, but Christ took upon Himself all sickness, all wickedness, all sin, all the pain of the universe, and all future sins–mine, yours, and everyone’s, until the end of the world–and killed them by His bodily death on the cross. So old sins, natures, and time have no power over us; we are free.
14. Christ, by His death, came into contact with all souls, including the souls of our ancestors who lived under the power of death. But as Christ rose from the dead and defeated death, He now gives us victory over death. Therefore, we no longer fear death. Whoever believes and communes with Christ in Holy Communion, “he has passed from death to life” (John 5:24) and “will never see death” (John 8:51). Together, we wait for Him to resurrect us so that our bodies will be transformed, become bright and luminous like the resurrected body of Christ, filled with power and love, without decay, without sickness, no longer constrained by the laws of physics.
15. Jesus Christ did not remain on earth, though he appeared to many, but ascended to God the Father, so that now there is always and inseparably the human flesh of Christ in God so that we may be united in truth with God. Good works cannot buy this gift of Christ, but we do good through selfless love to respond to God’s love.
16. The Holy Spirit came on Pentecost and gave new life. He, the Spirit, sustains, guides, comforts, reveals, and unites us to Christ. The Holy Spirit makes our love perfect and profound toso that we can overcome the fear of death and hell. He leads us to the truth, which is not ideas but Christ. The Holy Spirit constitutes the body of Christ, the Church.
17. So how can I, who love the world, my family, and my ancestors, become a member of the glorious body of Christ and thus help those I love? Through the sacraments of the Church.
18. The central sacrament is the Divine Liturgy, as described at the beginning. Other sacraments include:
• Baptism: Jesus granted us the freedom to be born of God, overcoming the human way of existence through parents. The Holy Spirit, in the waters of baptism, erases all our sins, bestows upon us the gift of participating in Jesus’ death and resurrection, and makes us members of His body—the Church, our new family.
• Anointing: The Holy Spirit enters us and grants us a new brilliant personality. We are given proper cultivation and freedom, release from all past burdens, and become aware of the groaning of creation; we are shown the way to fulfill our deep aspirations to liberate everything–by offering the universe to God.
• Confession: Unfortunately, in this world, we make mistakes and hurt others. We have no face to stand before God. This situation is called sin. We become sick members of the body of Christ through our bad attitudes and actions. Anything that breaks down love for God, ourselves, others, and creation is a sin. Healing is needed, and it is by forgiveness, reconciliation, acknowledgment of our evil deeds, authentic and practical repentance, and restitution for the evil we have caused. In the sacrament of confession, the Holy Spirit heals us of sin and grants us forgiveness so that we can become a healthy member of the body of Christ . Our sin influences the entire universe, but when I confess, the forgiving grace of the Holy Spirit radiates healing, especially to those I have sinned against.
• The love of man and woman is a primary human characteristic (Genesis 2:18: “… It is not good that the man should be alone”). God created human beings as a couple, man and woman, that the two flesh may be one. This is done in the sacrament of marriage. The conjugal love is presented to the Church, allowing the Holy Spirit to strengthen and fulfill it, thereby integrating with the procreation of children, which also contributes to the growth of the Church
• When we get sick, the Church, through the sacrament of oil, helps us to deal with the illness psychosomatically. The Holy Spirit sanctifies the oil, and the priest anoints us so that God’s grace can help us
• The Holy Spirit grants many ministries and gifts in the Church. It gives the special grace of the priesthood to certain members of the Church, that is, to participate in the priesthood of Christ (the only true priest who offers things and offers himself) and to administer the sacraments. The bishop is the father of each local Church. Every bishop is equal and united with all the other bishops. For practical reasons, the bishops of a large region or state elect one bishop to preside over meetings to solve practical problems and better shepherd the local churches
19. The sacraments are like heaven’s windows through which we now receive the presence and grace of God’s kingdom. God has presented them to us in the past in condensed forms, as miraculous events recorded in the Bible, to prepare us for the coming and incarnation of the Son.
20. The Church has no beginning; it has always existed because the Son of God is her head. However, its existence was revealed gradually over time and space, most obviously by God’s people in the Old Testament, the prophets, etc. The church shone forth by the incarnation of Christ and was glorified by the descent of the Holy Spirit. The Church is the body of Christ, which is constituted and enlivened by the Holy Spirit. It’s important to remember that the Church isn’t just about a building. The Holy Spirit blesses all of creation, embracing everything as part of the Church. And the Church will be completed in the Kingdom of God at the Second Coming. Historically, the disciples of Christ, the apostles, planted the Church over 2000 years ago in Europe, Asia, and Africa, with active local churches to this day. Each local church is one as the body of Christ, with the same faith, the same Bible, one priesthood, and the same worship (only the language is local). The apostles ordained their successors, the bishops, who also ordained their successors in one continuous line through the ages, the flame of the Holy Spirit passed by each bishop hand in hand to his successor, uninterrupted to this day.
21. Sadly, human passions, pride, and misunderstandings of the Bible and the Church’s teaching due to bad translations as well as external factors (political, nationalistic, etc.) have tried to alter the faith and life of the Church. Some people have broken away by cutting off continuity in the Eucharist, the living faith and truth. Some others have created their own problematic Churches, not founded by the Holy Spirit, the apostles, and their successors. They are condemned as heretics, and a clear distinction must be made by calling the Church “Orthodox,” i.e., it glorifies God in a correct, not a wrong, way. The Church respects local traditions, allowing participation in social events (festivals, marriages, funerals, etc…).
22. We do not forget our deceased. We always pray for them – not at them – that God will give them rest until we all rise again. Death cannot separate us from the love of Christ. The deceased does not need “paper money” but only to be remembered in the Liturgy before the Body of Christ, which is the authentic food of life, so that they may live in God’s loving, life-giving memory. They are in God’s hands, so they do not want to and cannot interfere in our lives and homes. God is the God of our fathers; He is not a God of the dead but of the living. We exist in response to God’s call (Romans 4:17: “God who gives life to the dead and calls the non-living as living beings”). We exist because God knows us “before the foundation of the world” (Ephesians 1:4). We are in God’s life-giving memory, so there is no point in reincarnation, past lives, etc.
23. The Church sanctifies all of creation and promotes it so that God’s grace is conveyed through nature within the sacraments; for example, water utilized in baptism, oil, and the touch of hands during marriage and ordination. Furthermore, the Church sanctifies creation through the grace of God by consecrating water, our homes, places of work, vehicles, animals, and every aspect of daily life. The light of heaven illuminates all things…
24. But how are we to live daily in God’s grace? By Holy Communion. Through prayer, we engage with Christ’s communication with the Father, sharing our words softly as well.. Our lives must have practical love, care, and compassion for everything. Hate no one, respect everyone, forgive those who have hurt us as God forgives us, and return them only with good.
25. This life in the sacraments and God’s grace is not impossible. Some people have lived it intensely, and God has made them our fellow workers, helpers, and examples. They are the Saints of the Church. We honor them as friends of Christ (but do not worship them) and ask them to intercede for us in Christ. The Theotokos Virgin Mary has the most remarkable holiness and parity in Christ and intercedes for us. We ask for the prayers of all because, ultimately, it is only by God’s grace that we can live and fulfill our duty to Him and the universe.
26 We aspire to achieve immortality, not for the sake of preserving our individuality, but so that our affection for those we currently cherish may endure indefinitely. Moreover, we desire the entirety of creation to remain perpetual. We seek to love, create, and expand our understanding throughout eternity. We love God, and our hearts cannot bear to be separated from Him.
27 Christ will return in glory and renew all things. We will dwell eternally in the light and joy of Christ, united by the Holy Spirit’s grace with all beings; this defines paradise. Even the wicked will be encompassed by the radiance of Christ’s love, which is inescapable, yet they will experience it as judgment and suffering.
28. All things shall radiate in the exquisite grace of the Holy Spirit, and the entirety of creation will flourish with joy and authentic freedom. There will be no death, illness, sorrow, or want. This new existence shall not be mundane; instead, it will represent a journey of perpetual advancement enriched by profound knowledge and love. God shall dwell within us, imparting the vibrant life that we currently perceive only in dim reflections and fleeting moments. The Holy Spirit will establish connections among all individuals and all creations, filling our hearts with boundless joy, knowledge, and love. We extend a warm welcome to you as you embrace this splendid life.
©Fr Jonah 李亮神父
