He is regarded as the " first master of the desert and the pinnacle of holy monks ", however, and there are monastic communities of the Maronite, Chaldean, and Orthodox churches which state that they follow his monastic rule.

Both the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church define sin more or less as a " macula ", a spiritual stain or uncleanliness that constitutes damage to man's image and likeness of God.

Before the current positive era of Eastern and Oriental Orthodox dialogues, Chalcedonians sometimes used to call the non-Chalcedonians " monophysites ", though the Coptic Orthodox Church in reality regards monophysitism as a heresy.

The Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria believes that Christ is perfect in His divinity, and He is perfect in His humanity, but His divinity and His humanity were united in one nature called " the nature of the incarnate word ", which was reiterated by Saint Cyril of Alexandria.

The largest group of the remaining followers of Remey, members of the so called " Orthodox Bahá ' í Faith ", believe that legitimate authority passed from Shoghi Effendi to Mason Remey to Joel Marangella.

Local meetings of hierarchs have been called " pan-Orthodox ", but these have invariably been simply meetings of local hierarchs of whatever Eastern Orthodox jurisdictions are party to a specific local matter.

Orthodox Christians use the term " Anagignoskomena " ( a Greek word that means " readable ", " worthy of reading ") for the ten books that they accept but that are not in the Protestant 39-book Old Testament canon.

To this day, in obedience to the commandment not to make " graven images ", Orthodox icons may never be more than three-quarter bas relief.

The Eastern Orthodox view of the origin of icons is generally quite different from that of most secular scholars and from some in contemporary Roman Catholic circles: " The Orthodox Church maintains and teaches that the sacred image has existed from the beginning of Christianity ", Léonid Ouspensky has written.

While there is disagreement about which acts come under core prohibitions, all of Orthodox Judaism puts certain core homosexual acts, including male-male anal sex in the category of yehareg ve ' al ya ' avor, " die rather than transgress ", the small category of Biblically-prohibited acts ( also including murder, idolatry, adultery, and incest ) which an Orthodox Jew is obligated under the laws of Self-sacrifice under Jewish Law to die rather than do.

Rabbi Norman Lamm ( the Chancellor, Rosh Yeshiva of the yeshiva ", and former president of Yeshiva University, a major Modern Orthodox Jewish institution ) advocated that some ( although not all ) homosexuals should be viewed as diseased and in need of compassion and treatment, rather than willful rebels who should be ostracized.

The Eastern Orthodox Church commemorates him as a " Great Ecumenical Teacher ", together with Basil the Great and Gregory the Theologian.

Orthodox Roman Catholic scholarship, some Protestant Churches, and the entire Eastern Orthodox Church attributes all of the Johannine literature to the same individual, the " Holy Apostle and Evangelist, John the Theologian ", whom it identifies with the " Beloved Disciple " in the Gospel of John.

speaks of the " bosom of Abraham ", which both the Roman Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church, following early Christian writers, understand as a temporary state of souls awaiting entrance into Heaven.

Neither the Eastern Orthodox Church nor Protestantism accepts the concept of a limbo of infants ; but, while not using the expression " Limbo of the Patriarchs ", the Eastern Orthodox Church lays much stress on the resurrected Christ's action of liberating Adam and Eve and other righteous figures of the Old Testament, such as Abraham and David, from Hades ( see Harrowing of Hell ).

The Eastern Orthodox Church maintains that Mary Magdalene, distinguished from Mary of Bethany and the " sinful woman ", had been a virtuous woman all her life, even before her conversion.

Another girl from a relatively large midwestern city described herself as `` the only Orthodox girl in town ''.

* 1962 – Representatives from the Russian Orthodox Church and Vatican City meet in Metz, France, and come to an agreement wherein the Russian church would send observers to the Second Vatican Council and in exchange, the Roman Catholic Church would refuse to condemn Communism.

It was then that he began to study the principles of law and administration under Konstantin Pobedonostsev, then a professor of civil law at Moscow State University and later ( from 1880 ) chief procurator of the Holy Synod of the Orthodox Church in Russia.

Category: Eastern Orthodox Christians from Serbia

Sole emperor from 1282, Andronikos II immediately repudiated his father's unpopular Church union with the Papacy ( which he had been forced to support while his father was still alive ), but was unable to resolve the related schism within the Orthodox clergy until 1310.

The Ethiopian Orthodox Church claims to possess the Ark of the Covenant, or Tabot, in Axum, not far from the border with Eritrea.

Churches that claim some form of episcopal apostolic succession, dating back to the apostles or to leaders from the apostolic era, include the Roman Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox Churches, the Church of the East, the Anglican Communion, and some Lutheran Churches ( see below ).

* Unction of the Sick article from the Sydney, Australia diocese of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia

The spelling and names in both the 1609 – 1610 Douay Old Testament ( and in the 1582 Rheims New Testament ) and the 1749 revision by Bishop Challoner ( the edition currently in print used by many Catholics, and the source of traditional Catholic spellings in English ) and in the Septuagint ( an ancient translation of the Old Testament in to Greek, which is widely used by the Eastern Orthodox instead of the Masoretic text ) differ from those spellings and names used in modern editions which are derived from the Hebrew Masoretic text.

For the Orthodox canon, Septuagint titles are provided in parentheses when these differ from those editions.

The disputed books, included in one canon but not in others, are often called the Biblical apocrypha, a term that is sometimes used specifically ( and possibly pejoratively in English ) to describe the books in the Catholic and Orthodox canons that are absent from the Jewish Masoretic Text ( also called the Tanakh or Miqra ) and most modern Protestant Bibles.

In order to receive permission from Bardot's parents to marry her, Vadim, originally a Russian Orthodox Christian, was urged to convert to Catholicism, although it is not clear if he ever did so.

The pope previously used the title Patriarch of the West, but this title was dropped from use in 2006 a move which caused some concern within the Orthodox Communion as, to them, it implied wider papal jurisdiction.

The Greek Orthodox clergy were removed from their sees and replaced with Latin clerics.

The Eastern Orthodox Church reads from Job during Holy Week.

Anthemios presented the Gospel to Emperor Zeno at Constantinople and received from him the privileges of the Greek Orthodox Church of Cyprus, that is, the purple cloak which the Greek Archbishop of Cyprus wears at festivals of the church, the imperial sceptre and the red ink with which he affixes his signature.

The Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox patriarchates split from one another in the East – West Schism of 1054 AD, and Protestantism came into existence during the Protestant Reformation of the 16th century, splitting from the Roman Catholic Church.

It is also situated at the nucleus of Coptic Orthodox community, which separated from the Roman and Byzantine church in the late 4th century.

Eastern Orthodox tradition tells that the pagans directed the stream of a river against the sanctuary of St. Michael there to destroy it, but Michael the Archangel appeared and split the rock by lightning to give a new bed to the stream, diverting the flow away from the church and sanctifying forever the waters which came from the gorge.

According to Orthodox Jews too there are variations in Jewish custom from one part of the world to another.

The Church belongs to the Oriental Orthodox family of churches, which has been a distinct church body since the Council of Chalcedon in AD 451, when it took a different position over Christological theology from that of the Eastern Orthodox Church ( not to be confused with the Greek Orthodox Church of Alexandria ).

The Patriarchate of Alexandria ( Greek Orthodox Church of Alexandria and Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria ) claims to have been founded by Saint Mark.

In 1763, Greek Orthodox bishop Erasmus of the Diocese of Arcadia, visited London, where John Wesley had considerable conversation with him, and ordained several Methodist lay preachers as priests, including John Jones.

Unction in the Greek Orthodox Church and Churches of Hellenic custom ( Melkite, Antiochian Orthodox, etc.

** Antipas of Pergamum ( Greek Orthodox Church )

* Monastery of Agios Nectarios, dedicated to Saint Nectarios, a recent saint of the Greek Orthodox Church.

He is now Metropolitan Savas ( Zembillas ) of Pittsburgh in the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America.

* Official web site of the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Alexandria and All Africa

Category: Greek Orthodox Patriarchs of Alexandria

The Books of the Bible are listed differently in the canons of Judaism and the Catholic, Protestant, Greek Orthodox, Slavonic Orthodox, Coptic, Georgian Orthodox, Armenian Apostolic, Syriac, Ethiopian and Eritrean Orthodox churches, although there is substantial overlap.

The Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox receive several additional books in to their canons based upon their presence in manuscripts of the ancient translation of the Old Testament in to Greek, the Septuagint ( although some of these books, such as Sirach and Tobit, are now known to be extant in Hebrew or Aramaic originals, being found amongst the Dead Sea Scrolls ).

The Eastern Orthodox receive the Septuagint as the textual basis for the entire Old Testament, in books both protocanonical and deuteroncanonical, to be used both in the Greek for liturgical purposes, and as the basis for translations in to the vernacular.

Catholic Christians, following the Canon of Trent, describe these books as deuterocanonical, meaning of " the second canon ," while Greek Orthodox Christians, following the Synod of Jerusalem ( 1672 ), use the traditional name of anagignoskomena, meaning " that which is to be read.

In 1099, Crusaders captured and fortified Bethlehem and replaced its Greek Orthodox clergy with a Latin one.

Up until that point the official Christian presence in the region was Greek Orthodox.

The Latin clerics were forced to leave, allowing the Greek Orthodox clergy to return.

The Greek Orthodox were given control of the basilica and shared control of the Milk Grotto with the Latins and the Armenians.

From 1517, during the years of Ottoman control, custody of the Basilica was bitterly disputed between the Catholic and Greek Orthodox churches.

The Greek Orthodox branch of Christianity continues to use the Greek translation ( the Septuagint ), but when a Latin translation ( called the Vulgate ) was made for the Western church, Kingdoms was first retitled the Book of Kings, parts One to Four, and eventually both Kings and Samuel were separated into two books each.