Church History in Plain Language

by Bruce L. Shelley

Of the three major divisions in Christianity today—Roman Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy, and Protestantism—the least known in the West is Eastern Orthodoxy. Most Christians in Europe and North America, if they think of Orthodox Christians at all, think of Orthodoxy as a kind of Roman Catholicism without the pope. Such an uninformed response is understandable. Christians in the West, both Protestant and Catholic, generally start by asking the same questions: How is a person saved? What is the church? Where does religious authority lie? Protestant and Catholic simply disagree about the answers. In Orthodoxy, however, it is not merely the answers that are different. The questions themselves are not the same. Orthodoxy reflects a distinctive history and a unique culture.