Oriental Orthodoxy: beliefs, history and sources

History & overview

The first families of Christendom — parted at Chalcedon.

The communion of Coptic, Armenian, Ethiopian, Eritrean, Syriac, and Indian churches that could not accept Chalcedon's two-natures formula in 451. One incarnate nature of the Word, they confessed — and fifteen centuries of separate, unbroken liturgy followed.

DeitiesOne God in three persons

Founded451 CE · Alexandria, Armenia, Antioch

AfterlifeResurrection and judgment

TextsBible · Liturgies of the ancient rites

The map

Oriental Orthodoxy’s corner of it — solid lines are descent; dotted lines are resemblance only, ideas held in common across unrelated faiths. Click a node to recenter; ✕ returns here. All 171 faiths →

c. 1000 BCE Judaism 30 CE Christianity 301 CE The Armenian Apostolic Church 330 CE The Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church 451 CE Oriental Orthodoxy 451 CE The Coptic Orthodox Church

Core Tenets

3 — a sample of the center, never the sum Enter →

The Word has one incarnate nature. Miaphysis: divinity and humanity united without separation in Christ — the confession Chalcedon's language could not hold. Go deeper — context →

The ancient rites are home. Coptic, Ge'ez, Armenian, Syriac: liturgy in the tongues of the first Christian nations, essentially unchanged. Go deeper — context →

Monasticism began in our deserts. Antony walked into the Egyptian desert, and the Christian monastery followed him out. Go deeper — context →

Rites & Ritual

what its people do — and when Enter →

The fasts. Coptic Christians fast over two hundred days a year, no animal products — the calendar itself is an ascetic. When more than half the year, in some ritesWho the faithful Go deeper — context →

Where next

the museum exit — every door leads deeper in

The Armenian Apostolic Church — The first nation baptised, and the church that outlived the nation's states. The Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church — Tewahedo — made one. Its own canon, its own calendar, and the Ark. The Coptic Orthodox Church — Saint Mark's see, and the longest fasting year in Christendom. The Syriac Orthodox Church — Antioch's church, still praying in Aramaic. The Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church — Saint Thomas's Indians, with a catholicos of their own since 1912. The Eritrean Orthodox Tewahedo Church — Thirty years old and sixteen centuries old at the same time. Hinduism — 5 shared ideas, a different faith Buddhism — 4 shared ideas, a different faith Jainism — 4 shared ideas, a different faith Islam — 4 shared ideas, a different faith Branch Oriental Orthodoxy — inherit everything, change what you must The library of ideas — what Oriental Orthodoxy shares with every other faith A faith at random — somewhere you have never been