Our Faith

"How old is the Orthodox Faith?"  by Rev. Dr. Miltiades Efthimiou (former Priest of Sts. Constantine and Helen 

If you are a Lutheran, your religion was founded by Martin Luther, an ex-monk of the Catholic Church, in the year 1517.

If you belong to the Church of England, your religion was founded by King Henry VIII  in the year 1534 because the Pope would not grant him a divorce with the right to remarry.

If you are a Presbyterian, your religion was founded by John Knox in Scotland in 1560.

If you are a Congregationalist, your religion was originated by Robert Brown in Holland in 1582.

If you are a Protestant Episcopalian, your religion was an offshoot of the Church of England, founded by Samuel Senbury in the American Colonies in the 17th century.

If you are a Baptist, you owe the tenets of your religion to John Smyth, who launched it in Amsterdam in 1606.

If you are of the Dutch Reformed Church, you recognize Michelis Jones as founder because he originated your religion in New York in 1628.

If you are a Methodist, your religion was founded by John and Charles Wesley in England in 1774.

If you are a Mormoun (Latrter Day Saints), Joseph Smith started your religion in Palmyra, New York in 1829.

If you worship with the Salvation Army, your sect began with William Booth in London in 1865.

If you are a Christian Scientist, you look to 1879 as the year in which your religion was born and to Mary Baker Eddy as its founder.

If you belong to one of the religious organizations known as "Church of the Nazarene, Pentecostal Gospel," "Holiness Church," or "Jehovah's Witnesses," your religion is one of hundreds of new sects founded by men within the past hundred years.

If you are Roman Catholic, your Church sharede the same rich apostolic and doctrinal heritage as the Orthodox Church for the first thousand years of its history, since during the first millennium they were one and the same Church.  Lamentably, in 1054, the Pope of Rome broke away from the other four Apostolic Patriarchates (which include Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch and Jerusalem), by tampering with the Original Creed of the Church, and considering himself to be infallible.  Thus your Church is 1,000 years old.

If you are an Orthodox Christian, your religion was founded in the year 33 by Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

It has not changed since that time.  Our Church is now almost 2,000 years old and it is for this reason that Orthodoxy, the Church of the Apostles and the Fathers is considered the true "one Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church."

Who is God?  In Exodus 3, the Lord started the dialogue by using a burning bush to get Moses' attention (v. 2); then He introduced Himself as the God of his forefathers (v 6)  No less than four times in this passage did God reiterate His identity.  He knew that Moses would be unable to take even the first step of faith until he knew the One with whom he was speaking.  Likewise, we cannot wholly give ourselves over to God until we first come to know Him in Jesus Christ.

Who am I?  Once Moses knew who God was, his next question established a sharp contract, as if to say, "Okay, I know who You are, but who am I?"  (Exodus 3:11)  The Lord answered Moses' question with a promise in verse 12, He essentially replied, "I will tell you who you are--you are the one whom I am with."  God gave Moses' life significance based not in the man's deeds, but in God's own glory.

Why am I here?  There is only one reason why you and I are alive today:  passages like Matthew 5:16, Romans 15:5-6, 1 Corinthians 6:19-20 and 1 Peter 2:12 make it perfectly clear that our job is to bring glory and honor to God by the way we live, the way we speak, and the way we love.

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