Our Orthodox Faith
Learn more about the Orthodox Christian Faith!
Spirituality
Orthodox Christian spirituality is, above all, life in Jesus Christ. It is not a set of rules by which to live, but the tools and practices that enable one to grow in likeness to Jesus Christ, thus fulfilling the created role of human persons to share in the life of the Holy Trinity (2 Peter 1.4.) These include reading Holy Scripture, liturgical participation, prayer, fasting, and almsgiving.
Sacraments - The Holy Mysteries
The official term to describe the sacramental or mystical actions of the Orthodox Church is "Holy Mysteries."
Worship
Worship of the Triune God is the most profound activity of the people of God. It is the created purpose of human beings to worship their Creator.
Higher Education
Here is a list of Colleges, Seminaries, and Theological Schools in the United States of America.
Theology
The Orthodox Church as always regarded Theology, (or "Theologia" in Greek) as the direct experience of God through which the truths pertaining to God are revealed by the Holy Spirit. As per Evagrios of Ponticus in the fourth century, "If you are truly a theologian, you truly pray. If you truly pray, you are truly a theologian." In the Orthodox Church, theology, spirituality, worship, prayer, are of a piece. The articles presented here as examples of the breadth and diversity of theological topics, writings and authors.
Theotokos the Mother of God
If Jesus is truly who we believe and confess Him to be, then we can do nothing other, and nothing less, than exalt His humble mother as truly Theotokos: a human person like ourselves, but whose womb “became more spacious than the heavens” by bearing the incarnate Son of God. And if, from her Nativity through her Dormition and beyond, she is truly who we believe and confess her to be—the Mother of God—then we can do nothing other, and nothing less, than ask her to intercede ceaselessly for us, for the sake of our salvation.
St. John Maximovitch
Our father among the saints John (Maximovitch), Archbishop of Shanghai and San Francisco (1896-1966), was a diocesan bishop of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia (ROCOR) who served widely from China to France to the United States.
He departed this life on June 19 (O.S.) / July 2 (N.S.), 1966, and was officially glorified by the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad on July 2, 1994. His glorification was later recognized for universal veneration by the Patriarchate of Moscow on July 2, 2008.