We hope you will make Three Hierarchs your spiritual home during your stay. We always need assistance. Would you like to bake some Prosphora? Sponsor a Fellowship Hour? Please see our volunteer sign ups below! Sign Ups. If you cannot or do not wish to attend in person, we encourage the faithful to stream our services on Facebook Live. Like our Facebook page, and you will be notified whenever a service is being streamed. Important Note: You do not need to have a Facebook account in order to watch these videos.
Simply click on the button below. Livestream Videos. Outside of Sundays, Orthros service length can be highly variable. By the ninth century, however, legitimate differences were intensified by political circumstances, cultural clashes, papal claims, and the introduction in the West of the Filioque phrase into the Nicene Creed.
Both the papal claims and the Filioque were strongly repudiated by the East. Although it is difficult to date the exact year of the schism, in the year official charges, known as Anathamas, were exchanged.
The Crusades, and especially the sack of the city of Constantinople by the western crusaders in , can be considered the final element in the process of estrangement and deepening mistrust. From that period onward, the Western Church, centered about the Pope of Rome, and the Eastern Church, centered about the Patriarch of Constantinople, went their separate ways. Although there were attempts to restore communion in the years and , there was no lasting unity achieved.
While political, cultural, and emotional factors have always been involved, the Orthodox Church believes that the two principal reasons for the continued schism are the papal claims of universal jurisdiction and infallibility, as well as the meaning of the Filioque. For nearly years the two traditions lived in formal isolation from each other. Only, since the early 's have steps been taken to restore the broken unity.
In the year , the City of Constantinople fell to the invading Muslims. With its capital, the Byzantine Empire came to an end; and the vast lands of Asia Minor fell subject to non-Christians. The great ecclesiastical cities of Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem, which had come under the political control of Islam centuries earlier, were now joined by Constantinople. Throughout the Ottoman Empire, Christians came to be treated as second-class citizens who paid heavy taxes and wore distinctive dress.
Thousands of Christians suffered martyrdom. Patriarchs were deposed and murdered. Churches, monasteries, and schools were closed and destroyed. Only with the liberation of Greece in , did some of the brutality come to an end. However, there were a series of vicious massacres at the beginning of this century. And, even today, Christians are denied their basic human rights in parts of Asia Minor. After the decline of Byzantium, the Church in Russia thrived for nearly years.
However, with the Bolshevik revolution of , Orthodoxy found itself confronted with the beliefs and political policies of militant atheists. Most churches were closed; and a policy was inaugurated to eliminate Christianity from Russia, a land which was steeped in Orthodoxy since the tenth century. In the years between the two World Wars, Orthodox Christians in Russia suffered much cruel and devastating persecution. Only since have there been modifications in government policy which have permitted the Church some degree of existence.
Today, in many of the lands which were once the pride and glory of Eastern Christendom, the Orthodox Church struggles amid great obstacles and persecution.
It has been observed that in recent centuries there have been more martyrs than during the great persecutions of the early Church. Yet, despite injustices and indignities, the Faith survives. Throughout the past two hundred years the Orthodox Church in the Western Hemisphere has been developing as a valuable presence and distinctive witness. For example, in the United States, Orthodoxy has been recognized as one of the four major faiths.
She has more than five million members, who are grouped into more than a dozen ecclesiastical jurisdictions. The Greek Orthodox Archdiocese, which is the largest, has about parishes and operates church schools, parochial schools, an orphanage, a college, and a graduate theological school.
Many believe that Orthodoxy in America has the potential for true renewal, creative development, and missionary activity which can contribute greatly to American life. From the beginning of this century, the Orthodox Church has been committed to the Ecumenical Movement. The Three Bar Cross Explained. The Orthodox Church affirms it is the Church founded by Jesus Christ and his apostles, begun at the day of Pentecost with the descent of the Holy Spirit in the year 33 A.
The bishops of the Orthodox Church trace unbroken succession to the very apostles themselves, therefore ultimately receiving their consecrations from our Lord Jesus Christ. All the bishops of the Church, no matter their titles, are equal in their sacramental office. The various titles given to bishops are simply administrative or honorific in their essence.
At an ecumenical council, each bishop may cast only one vote, whether he is the Ecumenical Patriarch or simply an auxiliary bishop without a diocese. Thus, there is no equivalent to the Roman Catholic papacy within the Orthodox Church.
As with its Apostolic succession, the faith held by the Church is that which was handed by Christ to the apostles. Nothing is added to or subtracted from that deposit of faith which was "handed once for all to the saints" Jude 3. Throughout history, various heresies have afflicted the Church, and at those times the Church makes dogmatic pronouncements especially at ecumenical councils delineating in new language what has always been believed by the Church, thus preventing the spread of heresy and calling to repentance those who rend asunder the Body of Christ.
Its primary statement of faith is the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed. The Orthodox Church of today consists of fourteen or fifteen autocephalous churches and five autonomous churches, sometimes referred to as jurisdictions. Autocephalous churches are fully self-governing in all they do, while autonomous churches must have their primates confirmed by one of the autocephalous churches, usually its mother church.
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