In Defense of Orthodoxy
“Only Begotten Son and Immortal Word of God, Who for our salvation didst will to be incarnate of the holy Theotokos and ever-virgin Mary, Who without change didst become man and wast crucified, O Christ our God, Trampling down death by death, Who art one of the Holy Trinity, Glorified...
Four Great Orthodox Christian Books for High School Students
Inspired by the Department of Religious Education of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese, the Orthodox Christian Network features Great Books, Music & Teaching Publications featured in the Orthodox Christian Resource Catalog. The Catalog is a publication of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America Department of Religious Education. All items featured...
Creed and Confessions in the Orthodox Church
Q: I am interested in the “synod of Jerusalem” held in the 17th century, and in a book called the “Diocletian Confession,” I think. It was the Orthodox response to the Protestant Reformation and discussed where Orthodoxy stood on the doctrines of the Reformation. I can’t find anything in print....
Pre-Nicene Creeds
The confession of faith which we Orthodox chant or sing every Sunday at our Divine Liturgy has a long and complicated history, and examining its history plunges us back into the earliest days of the Church’s life. It is a glorious plunge. Discipleship to Jesus and inclusion in His Church...
Nicea and Afterward
The Church had always confessed the divinity of Christ. The New Testament had proclaimed Jesus as the divine Son of God, and the phrase “Christ our God” had been used since the days of St. Ignatius of Antioch (in his Epistle to the Romans), who died about 107 A.D. The...
I Believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of Heaven and Earth
To us today, it sounds a little odd to begin a creed with anything so obvious as the fact that there exists but one God, and that this almighty Father is the creator of heaven and earth. Given that the rest of the creed is devoted to proclaiming the Church’s...
And of all things, visible and invisible
The Creed not only confesses that our God, the Father of the Lord Jesus Christ, is the creator of heaven and earth. It also adds the phrase that He is the creator “of all things, visible and invisible.” In its original form, the phrase was probably added to hammer yet...
The Full Divinity of Jesus
As mentioned in a previous article on the history of the Nicene Creed, a controversy erupted in the church of the fourth century through the teachings of Arius. Though granting that Jesus existed before His birth at Bethlehem as the Word of the Father, Arius denied that this Word was...
The Mighty Acts of Jesus
In our present version of the Creed, after a bold assertion of Christ’s full divinity comes a recitation of His mighty acts. “For us men and for our salvation He came down from heaven and was incarnate of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary and became Man, and was...
The Holy Spirit
The third main section of the present Creed concerns the Holy Spirit and His work in the holy Church. We note that the Holy Spirit and the Church are paired together in the Creed, for the Church is the handiwork and home of the Holy Spirit, and one cannot think...
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