Andrew Louth - Introducing Eastern Orthodox Theology

Labels are sometimes a problem. Nobody wants to be labelled, and yet we use labels all the time, as a way of simplifying the world in which we live, a way of introducing some order and identity. Orthodox in the West have a particular problem with the labels others apply and they accept. Orthodox by itself, in England and America, is usually taken to designate outside a few, rather specialized contexts Orthodox Judaism, as opposed to Conservative, Liberal or Reform Judaism. Some Orthodox use Christian Orthodox to avoid that, or speak of themselves as belonging to the Orthodox Church. But there is no body called the Christian Orthodox Church, or even the Orthodox Church; it is well known that there is the Greek Orthodox Church, the Russian Orthodox Church, the Romanian Orthodox Church and so on.

So who are the Orthodox? I have used what is probably still the most generally accepted term, Eastern Orthodox, though over the last century, the emigration of Orthodox from traditionally Orthodox countries to the West, their settlement here and the consequent attraction to their ranks of people with a cultural background that is entirely Western, means that there are now many members of the Orthodox Church who are uncomfortable with being thought Eastern, for there is nothing at all about them that is Oriental. So it seems to me that the best thing to do is to start by explaining whom I take the Eastern Orthodox to be, rather than assuming that the label will not be misunderstood.

There seem to me to be three ways of approaching this question of identity and definition. The first is identifying those I am including under the title Eastern Orthodox, by providing a list comprehensive, though not exhaustive. The second could be called historical: Eastern Orthodox are who they are as the result of their history. Those of a Western background who have adopted Eastern Orthodoxy have, in some way, placed themselves in debt to that history. The third way might be to ask what is distinctive about Eastern Orthodoxy. I want to pursue each of these avenues one by one; in fact, I think, they will be found to lead one into another.

First of all, then, Eastern Orthodox means belonging to the family of Eastern Orthodox Churches, as opposed to the various families of Western Churches, and also to the Oriental Orthodox Churches. The Eastern Orthodox Churches, in this sense, are found to be various national groups. There are the Greek Orthodox: both in Greece itself, the Greek islands including Cyprus, but also the Greek diaspora, mostly to be found in Europe, the United States and Australia the result of emigration from what is now Turkey, as well as Greece, and, especially in the case of Great Britain, from Cyprus as well as Greek Orthodox under various ancient patriarchs (Antioch, Alexandria, Jerusalem). The leader of the Greek Orthodox is the cumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, now called Istanbul, in Turkey, where he still resides. (The title cumenical will be explained later.) There are also the Russian Orthodox, the Romanian Orthodox, the Bulgarian Orthodox, the Serbian Orthodox all under patriarchs as well as the Georgian Orthodox (under a Patriarch-Catholicos), and smaller churches in a variety of countries for example, Albania, Estonia, Finland, Poland, the Czech lands and Slovakia. Many of these national groups also have significant numbers abroad, in the diaspora, mostly Western Europe and America, but elsewhere too.