The goal of the estimated 300 million Orthodox Christians is to draw nearer to God throughout their lives through theosis, a spiritual pilgrimage to become more “Christ-like”. The earliest recorded use of the term “orthodox” in relation to Christianity was in the Codex Justinianus (c. 530 AD) where it meant “conforming to the creeds of the early Church.”
The Orthodox Church traces its roots to the Great Schism. During the 9th and 10th centuries AD the Christian church under the Patriarch of Constantinople made significant conversions among the peoples of Eastern Europe, including Kievan Russia and the Balkans.
Doctrinal issues such as the filioque split and the authority of the Pope over the Patriarch in matters religious, exacerbated by the political and economic rivalry of Rome and Constantinople, led to a falling out. The Orthodox Church holds that only it practiced the original and true faith as established by Christ and passed down by the Apostles.
Moreover, after the fall of Constantinople to the Ottomans in 1453, the Eastern Church became ever more isolated from Rome under the relatively tolerant rule of the Turks. Meanwhile the Orthodox Church flourished under the Russian tsars, with lots of converts among the Slavs.
Although somewhat diminished by Communist rule and official polilicies of secularism, Eastern Orthodoxy holds fast to the old Christian belief in sin, salvation, and the incarnation of the spirit.
