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Eastern Christianity comprises Christian traditions and church families that originally developed during classical and late antiquity in the Eastern Mediterranean region or locations further east, south or north.[1] The term does not describe a single communion or religious denomination. Eastern Christianity is a category distinguished from Western Christianity, which is composed of those Christian traditions and churches that originally developed further west.
Major Eastern Christian bodies include the Eastern Orthodox Church and the Oriental Orthodox Churches, along with those groups descended from the historic Church of the East (also called the Assyrian Church), as well as the Eastern Catholic Churches (which are in communion with Rome and maintain Eastern liturgies), and the Eastern Protestant churches.[2] Most Eastern churches do not normally refer to themselves as "Eastern", with the exception of the Assyrian Church of the East and its offshoot, the Ancient Church of the East.
The Eastern Orthodox are the largest body within Eastern Christianity with a worldwide population of 220 million,[3] followed by the Oriental Orthodox at 60 million.[4] The Eastern Catholic Churches consist of about 16–18 million and are a small minority within the Catholic Church.[5] Eastern Protestant Christian churches do not form a single communion; churches like the Ukrainian Lutheran Church and Malankara Mar Thoma Syrian Church have under a million members. The Assyrian Church of the East and the Ancient Church of the East, descendant churches of the Assyria-based Church of the East, have a combined membership of approximately 400,000.[6]
Historically, Eastern Christianity was centered in the Middle East and surrounding areas, where Christianity originated. However, after the Muslim conquest of the Levant in the 7th century, the term Eastern Church increasingly came to be used for the Greek Church centered in Constantinople, in contrast with the (Western) Latin Church, centered on Rome, which uses the Latin liturgical rites. The terms "Eastern" and "Western" in this regard originated with geographical divisions in Christianity mirroring the cultural divide between the Hellenistic East and the Latin West, and the political divide of 395 AD between the Western and Eastern Roman Empires. Since the Protestant Reformation of the 16th century, the term "Eastern Christianity" may be used in contrast with "Western Christianity", which contains not only the Latin Church but also forms of Protestantism and Independent Catholicism.[7] Some Eastern churches have more in common historically and theologically with Western Christianity than with one another.
Because the largest church in the East is the body currently known as the Eastern Orthodox Church, the term "Orthodox" is often used in a similar fashion to "Eastern", to refer to specific historical Christian communions. However, strictly speaking, most Christian denominations, whether Eastern or Western, regard themselves as "orthodox" (meaning "following correct beliefs") as well as "catholic" (meaning "universal"), and as sharing in the Four Marks of the Church listed in the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed (381 AD): "One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic" (Greek: μία, ἁγία, καθολικὴ καὶ ἀποστολικὴ ἐκκλησία).[note 1]
Eastern churches (excepting the non-liturgical dissenting bodies) utilize several liturgical rites: the Alexandrian Rite, the Armenian Rite, the Byzantine Rite, the East Syriac Rite (also known as Persian or Assyrian Rite), and the West Syriac Rite (also called the Antiochian Rite).
- ^ Specific areas include Western Asia, Asia Minor, Eastern Europe, Southeastern Europe, the Caucasus, Northeast Africa, the Fertile Crescent and the Malabar coast of South Asia, and ephemerally parts of Persia, Central Asia and the Far East. Historically, Christianity in the Persian Empire and in Central Asia also had great importance, especially by proselytising in East and South Asia.
- ^ Cite error: The named reference
HämmerliMayer2016was invoked but never defined (see the help page). - ^ Fairchild, Mary (17 March 2017). "Eastern Orthodox Denomination". ThoughtCo. Retrieved 19 October 2018.
- ^ "Orthodox Christianity in the 21st Century". Pew Research Center's Religion & Public Life Project. 8 November 2017.
Oriental Orthodoxy has separate self-governing jurisdictions in Syria, Iraq, Armenia, Ethiopia, Egypt, Eritrea, India, and it accounts for roughly 20% of the worldwide Orthodox population.
- ^ Anderson, Jon (7 March 2019). "The beautiful witness of the Eastern Catholic Churches". Catholic Herald. Archived from the original on 29 September 2019. Retrieved 29 September 2019.
- ^ Murre van den Berg, Heleen (2011) [2009]. "Assyrian Apostolic Church of the East". The Encyclopedia of Christian Civilization. Vol. 1. Malden: Wiley-Blackwell. pp. 154–159.
- ^ Bulletin for the Study of Religion, Volumes 9–12. Council on the Study of Religion. 1978. p. 29.
Since Eastern Christianity is difficult to define, or even to describe, the subject parameters of the proposed works will be somewhat open-ended.
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Scharper, Philip J. (1969). Meet the American Catholic. Broadman Press. p. 34.
It is interesting to note, however, that the Nicene Creed, recited by Catholics in their worship, is also accepted by millions of other Christians as a testimony of their faith – Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Methodists, Lutherans, and members of many of the Reformed Churches.
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