Hello everyone.
Firstly sorry if this has been brought up before and if its in the wrong thread.
I have tried to research this, but cannot find a direct answer or seem to understand the answer.
Can anyone explain to me the differences between the orthodox churches?
For example what is the main difference between the Greek, Serbian, Russian etc orthodox church?
And how the Greek orthodox church changed to the new calendar and the Serbian, and Russian ... are still on the old one?
What stomps me is that the Serbian and Russian ... church are on the old calendar, and the Greek on the new one and both have different Christmas days but the same Easter?
Also the differences between the Eastern orthodox church and the oriental orthodox church?
Thank you in advance and God bless
The main differences between the local churches will be linguistic and cultural. The faith is exactly the same, but some practices and traditions will differ. As an example, my church mostly uses Romanian in the Liturgy (some other languages in the disaspora), uses metal wedding crowns, lifts the coliva in a panakhida and ends the Liturgy with an anointing of each parishioner. The Greek church we used to go to used Koine in the Liturgy, used floral crowns for weddings, never lifted the coliva or anointed parishioners at the close of the Liturgy, but had liturgical fans that we do not use. In other words, the differences are minor and not of any great significance, except perhaps if you find yourself in Liturgy where you don't understand the language.
The calendar issue is a whole subject in its own right and there are plenty of threads about it here. For now I'll only say that even those of us the New Calendar continue to use the Old Paschalion, which is why we have Easter at the same time as the Old Calendar churches. It's an issue that needs sorting out.
As for the EO/OO difference - that's down to the Council of Chalcedon, which we accept and the OOs do not. It appears to many of us that they actually believe the same things we do but they remain out of communion with us nonetheless. They certainly appear to be the closest church to us in faith, closer than Roman Catholicism and it seems to me that their miaphysite Christology is just a different way of phrasing the same beliefs we have, but not everyone would agree with me.
James
