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Wow I didn't realize so many people would be interested! I do like the websites that Little Lamb posted, and agree that the one from the Catholic perspective has a slightly different slant than what I learned, but it's basically the same. The Orthodox Church traces its history back to Christ and the Apostles, with zero theological change, and zero change in our prayers, traditions, etc. From the Orthodox viewpoint, it was the Western churches that broke away and formed the Catholic church. Obviously everyone sees things differently, but the Catholic church does recognize the Orthodox church as the oldest christian faith, I think.
As far as our specific beliefs, check out the websites because they do a better job of explaining than I could. We believe in the holy trinity of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. We belive that Jesus was fully divine and fully human, that he was both God and God's son, and human. We believe that the Virgin Mary (who we call "Theotokos," meaning God-Bearer) was a virgin when she conceived Jesus. We believe in Heaven and Hell, and not Purgatory. We recognize Saints because they lead a holy example of how men and women should live their lives. We pray to Saints, asking them to intercede with God for us, but do not believe saints have special powers to grant us things that God grants. I hope that makes sense.

Some things that people usually find interesting about the orthodox church is that we are baptized, confirmed, and given first communion all when we are 40 days old, rather than in 3 separate phases like in the Catholic Church. Also, married men can be ordained to the priesthood, but a single man ordained to the priesthood cannot later get married. Most of our priests are married, and their wives play a very large role in the church community. Only men can serve on the altar, be deacons, or priests, or bishops (except in a convent where a Mother Superior can perform certain roles on the altar but does not assume the role of a priest). This is because the Orthodox Church calls on men and women both to live like Christ, but in different roles. Men stive to be like Christ through ministry and teaching, and humbling themeselves to serve their community. Women are like Christ in that they give life (give birth). Some people see this as sexist against women, but women are so respected and loved in our church that all I can say is that I know it's not true.
Hmmm what else -- Oh I know. Has anyone seen My Big Fat Greek Wedding? That family is Orthodox, and their wedding is just like all the weddings in my church! Our weddings are LOOOONG but beautiful and wonderful. The bride and groom both wear crowns for most of it. This is to resemble the crown of the martyr, because you are both supposed to be martyring yourself to each other. We also don't say any vows (much less write our own). Like everything else in the Orthodox Church, the wedding ceremony is very old and traditional. In an Orthodox marriage, men are called on to protect their wives as they would protect their own bodies, and to be Christ-like, in that they must give up their own life for their wife. This doesn't mean literally dying for your wife, just that you put your own selfishness aside and do everything to provide for her. Women are called to be OBEDIENT to their husbands, which all non-Orthodox people always get all excited about when they hear it. But, if the man is doing his role of doing everything that is best for the wife, then the wife has nothing to worry about in being obedient to him as she would be obedient to God.

Okay that's probably more of an explanation than anyone was looking for, but that's the main features of Orthodoxy in a nutshell.

I belong to an Antiochian Orthodox Church, which just means that the people in my church are mostly Middle-Eastern, and that the bishop in charge of our church is in Antioch, Syria. Other Orthodox Churches in the US are Greek, Russian, Serbian, and Ukranian. We all believe the same things, we share priests, we take communion together, and are of one faith. The only differences are ethnic, meaning sometimes the services will be in different languages (although most are in English now anyway), and organizational, as far as where their bishops are located, and who is in charge of assigning priests to parishes, things like that.

That's really all I can think of. Feel free to ask me any more questions! Take a look at LittleLamb's post and the websites she included, as they all have a lot of info for people curious about the Orthodox Church.

Oh this is what a typical Orthodox Cross looks like:

Explanation:
Concerning the Orthodox Cross:

The top bar signifies the sign that was placed above Christ's head, reading, "Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews." In Orthodox iconography the phrase "King of Glory" is often written on this bar instead.

The center bar is that upon which Christ's arms were stretched and nailed.

The bottom bar signifies the footrest which supported His body.
While there are a variety of pious understandings as to the slanted position of this bar -- even though in earlier Byzantine iconography the bar was generally depicted as being horizontal rather than slanted -- these are of somewhat later origin.

Oh also we have Icons in our churches and in our homes. They look like this:

Icons have traditionally been used in the church to tell a story. You can't just sit down and paint whatever you want. There are lots of understandings tied to the colors used, and how the saints and Christ look. The icons have remained very consistent over the years are not about artistic expression, but rather to tell a specific story. We do not pray to icons, but we keep them around as thoughtful reminders. We "venerate" the icons by kneeling before them and kissing them. We bless icons, but do not believe they have any kind of powers. Many later churches disagreed with the use of icons, considering it to be idol worship. But we do not worship them. We kiss them and focus on them when we pray much the way you might kiss a photo of a loved one or look at that photo when you are thinking about that person and missing him.

Okay I think I've covered the basics!

Any questions?

Panda

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Amanda

I live in the Big Apple, but I don't eat the skin

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