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The Eastern Orthodox faith is at the center of many of the millennial celebrations, but to many of our readers—specially the Western Protestants—it may be a mysterious, unknown quantity. This article provides a Ukrainian Orthodox adherent’s introduction to his faith, including distinctives in worship and theology.

To most western-hemisphere Protestants, the Eastern Orthodox Church—despite so many media-hyped millennium celebrations revolving around it—is still very much a mysterious unknown, a phenomenon almost altogether outside their experience. So let us take a short comparison-and-contrast journey into what is the oldest continuous Christian tradition in the world.

At the outset we can discern at least one basic difference between Eastern Christianity and most of Western—their differing uses of the word orthodoxy. Whereas for the Western church the word has come to be almost exclusively associated with correct doctrine, for the Eastern church orthodoxy includes correct doctrine but is inextricably rooted in—and invariably grows from—correct worship. Thus to keep our journey properly oriented, we will make frequent reference to the primary compass-point of Orthodoxy-proper worship.

The Orthodox, like most Roman Catholics and Protestants, worship the triune God of the Scriptures. Orthodox prayers are offered to God the Father, Jesus, God the Son, and to the Holy Spirit. During worship assemblies, the members’ frequent making of the sign of the cross “in the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit” is an ongoing reminder of the Trinity.

The Orthodox see the doctrine of the Trinity as so significant that, each year in January, when Orthodox priests visit all the members’ homes to bless the residences and those living in them with holy water, the priests sing this hymn in a brief service at every home:

“When Thou, O Lord wast baptized in the Jordan, the worship of the Trinity was made manifest. For the voice of the Father bore witness unto Thee, calling Thee the beloved Son, and the Spirit, in the form of a dove, confirmed His word as sure and steadfast.”

The Orthodox have communal worship assemblies, just as do Catholics and Protestants. The church buildings where the Orthodox meet for these assemblies have three main parts: 1) the entrance; 2) the main open area where the worshippers gather; and 3) the altar, from whence the priest leads the worship. Looking around in an Orthodox church building, a Protestant might be struck by several features that differ from the average Protestant church building.

One of the most obvious differences is the pervasive presence of icons, or religious “pictures.” Many Protestants might object at first that the presence of these “images” cannot be reconciled with the Old Testament’s admonitions against idolatry. But the Orthodox who produce and display these icons do not see them as idols—in fact, they would wholeheartedly agree with Protestants that idolatry has no place in Christianity.

The Orthodox do not believe that the icons are in any way substitutes for God. Rather, they believe that the icons’ evocative style and prescribed content better help human worshippers move toward the invisible, triune God who alone is worthy of adoration.

Icons are never painted (actually, written is the term the Orthodox prefer to use to describe the creation of icons) with the intention of them being realistic representations of actual persons; they are always painted stylistically, according to longstanding traditional guidelines, and always with the intention of drawing the worshipper’s attention to spiritual realities above and beyond the icons. The Orthodox refer to icons as “windows to heaven.”

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