Synodicon from the Sunday of Orthodoxy
"What does the Orthodox Church believe?"
God
The Orthodox Church professes and confesses her faith in one God. Who, however is that one God? Does He have something in common with the deities of other monotheisic and polytheistic religions? Does everyone worship the God that we worship? The God that the Orthodox Church worships is not the god of one religion, or a god that someone invented. Our God revealed Himself, by Himself. Whatever we know about God is what He revealed Himself to us. Our faith in Him is not the result of a human search. Therefore, God in Trinity which Orthodoxy worships, has nothing to do with deities of different religions. There are, of course, other monotheistic religions. None of them, however, worships the One God in Trinity that revealed Himself to His Church , which He Himself created. God in Trinity is a personal God. That means that He is not an unknown power. He is not something general and abstract. He is a person. Speaking more precisely He is a community of persons. He is the community of love (of course always speaking in relative terms that we can understand) of the three eternal persons of the Holy Trinity; of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. That is why "God is love"(1 John 4:8). It is because of this absolute love that God created the world. Only because He loved man and wanted to make him a sharer of His glory did He create man.
Man
This is the only way in which the existence of man can have any meaning. God created man for the sole purpose of being like unto Him. God granted to man to share in His divinty. To share in His vastness and perfection. That is what is meant when we read that God created man " in His image and likeness" (Gen. 1: 26). Man, however, chose (having the great gift of free choice from God Himself) completely on his own to follow evil, that is sin, which is nothing more than ignoring the will of God. Man was immediately given the oppurtunity to repent, but in his persistence in pride he threw aside this oppurtunity (Gen. 3). God, on His part, had already, in his internal will, laid down the plan of the salvation of man. God, through His becoming man, alike him in everything but sin, gave back to man the capabiliy to regain not only his former state, but to work on to his "theosis" or becoming God-like.
Jesus Christ
Jesus Christ is the only begotten Son of God, the second person of the Holy Trinity, who joined to Himself the human nature. He became, as we have said, a man in all things except for sin. The divine and human natures meet in His person. He is the God-man. Christ is the complete and perfect revelation of God to mankind. His life is the confirmation of His perfect love of mankind. The mystery of His passion and resurrection is too great to fit into our human mind. Christ is the new Adam. The new first ancestor of mankind that opened the blocked off road towards "theosis". Only through Christ can a person gain his salvation.
Church of God
This is why Christ established His Church, in which all mankind can regain its salvation. The Church is the mystical body of Christ which is given life by the presence of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit provides the mysteries (sacraments) to the Church as the means of salvation. The Church is not based on its external form, nor on its organization which it acquired during Its history. The Church recognizes no head, except the Lord Jesus Christ. It is not based on great titles, neither does it recognize as Orthodox those who simply bear a title, even if that title is that of a patriarch. The structural form of the Church is not such a stiff form and it has certain changes according to historical happenings and the political status of each place. The Church has never and will never recognize the infallibility of any pope or patriarch. The Church does not follow any patriarch that teaches heresy. This is why True Orthodox Christians the world over do not hesitate to break ecclesiastical communion with any hierarch who teaches heretical beliefs. St. Cyprian of Carthage says "Extra Ecclesiam, nulla salus","Outside the Church, there is no salvation". Only within the true Church of Christ can one be saved. And the true Church is only the one that preserves unchanged the Faith given by the Lord and the Holy Apostles.
