Posted by Dena on March 5, 2003, at 9:54:47
In reply to Re: Lou's response to Dena's post-2 » Dena, posted by Lou Pilder on March 4, 2003, at 23:01:17
Good Morning, Lou!
You asked me to clarify what I meant by Orthodox. I'm a relative novice at understanding Christian church history, so I may need to defer to Jonathan, who seems to be further down the road of understanding than me. However, to the best of my own understanding at this point, "Orthodox", in a Christian context, refers to the original Christian faith passed on from Jesus Christ to His Apostles, who passed it on to their disciples (or students), and so on and so on for centuries. After one thousand years of Christianity being One Church, there was the Great Schism between the churches of the East & the churches of the West (primarily Rome). (to understand the Great Schism, you will have to ask someone far more knowledgeable than me to explain it to you - I'm still learning about it myself.) Historically then, the churches of the west (under Rome) became known as Roman Catholic, while the churches of the East became known as Eastern Orthodox, or sometimes Orthodox, for short. In spite of the differences that account for the Great Schism, the two ancient branches of Christianity have much more in common than in division. As concerning purgatory, the Western Church (Roman Catholic) embraced the doctrine of purgatory after the Great Schism; Eastern Orthodoxy has never embraced it.
It's very difficult to put centuries of history into a "nutshell", as I'm attempting to do here. I suggest that you perhaps contact Jonathan if you have any other questions concerning Eastern Orthodoxy. I don't want to do the Church a disservice by explaining out of my relatively naive understanding.
I hope this helps somewhat.
Shalom, Dena
poster:Dena
thread:200824
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/faith/20021227/msgs/206101.html