To anyone brought up in Western Christianity, Roman or Protestant, the world of Eastern Orthodoxy is unfamiliar.
We are likely to find the format of its services strange, its theological terminology hard to understand and its way of thinking radically different. There is a sense of 'foreignness', rooted in the growing estrangement between East and West which culminated in the 'Great Schism' of 1054. Yet evangelicals have recently begun crossing the great divide and becoming Orthodox. What is it about Orthodoxy which attracts them, and where is evangelicalism failing?
What is Orthodoxy?
Doctrinally speaking, Orthodoxy claims to embody the true church, founded on the Scriptures and the seven Ecumenical Councils, whose conclusions were accepted by East and West. These took place between 325 and 787 AD and established the outlines of Christian belief concerning the Trinity and the person of Christ; evangelicals should have no trouble accepting the main decisions of the first four at least.(1)
