Ecc514 - Orthodox Ukrainian jurisdictions

Lesson 1: Early Church Jurisdictions - 2

In this course we will be focusing on geographic and canonical jurisdictions among Orthodox Christians, rather than on styles of worship or the spread of doctrine. However, we should note here that the desire to share right doctrine and worship was the core objective in excersizing any form of hierarchical authority among the churches. Since this history is not simply divine, but also human, it was sometimes colored by the love of men for power.

While the church was under persecution desire for power was eliminated to some extent. But this was much less the case after Emperor Constantine issued the Edict of Milan, which proclaimed freedom of all religions to practice unhindered throughout the Empire. As most people are aware, Constantine himself chose Christianity as his faith. We will not discuss his status as a saint or the genuineness of his faith in this course.

Suffice it to say here that the term "Orthodox" was given to the victors in a dispute over true doctrine settled in a council at Nicea. "Ortho" means "true." "Doxa" means "glory." We would all do well to think of doctrine as "glory"- not just as a set of beliefs.

The words "Orthodox Church" or "Orthodox Christian" refers to those believers who are in communion with those churches which were victors not only in the disputes settled at Nicea in 325 C.E., but also of the six other great ecumenical councils which followed, and more especially with those who share the faith of the holy fathers of the church. Those Christians who did not accept the conclusions of these councils may very much believe themselves to be the true orthodox christians, but we generally refer to them as Oriental, Nestorian, Coptic and a variety of other names.

St. Michael Academy is at the service of Christians of every denomination. Obviously, if you are taking this course but you are not in communion with the Orthodox Christian church you believe that you are an orthodox Christian and the church which calls itself by that name is not. The Orthodox Christians we will be talking about in this course are sometimes referred to less accurately as Eastern Orthodox or Greek Orthodox. All three terms come from historical usage. They are not all Greek, though many are. They are not all from the East, though many are. We use capital letters to indicate a proper name so that you can understand the distinctions.

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