Orthodox & Catholic:  What are the differences?

I was just wondering if anyone here has any concise (but interesting and detailed) information about the history and fundamentals of Orthodox christianity? What are their core beliefs? How did they come about? Do they have a huge heirarchy like Catholicism? Thanks in advance.

they have patriarchs like in the catholic church, but no head of all of them - that was their main problem with the catholic church (the pope). Earlier in their history they went through a massive statue/art destroying iconoclasm that made all of their churches less gaudy and more focused on jesus rather than saints and expensive things. over time it changed and, in my opinion, orthodox churches tend to be more gaudy than catholic ones.

i think they believe in the real presence like catholics and anglicans and all in all - from my limited understanding of the eastern churches position, the problem is just the Greek rites vs the latin rites. imagine if the catholic church had no pope and practiced more traditional koine greek christian values rather than the pauline roman ones

but i havnt gone to religion class in a while

Martin Luther started it all a long time ago, posting 100 hieratices(SP) of the Catholic Church on the Popes front door. he went on the run and started printing bibles in common tounge, not greek, i think early germanic(not sure). that is a big no-no, printing the bible in other than latin(BS really, heberew is the purest form of it, but hey, who in the catholic church gives a damn about the jews) and the church wanted him hung. McGruff is right, the difference is less focus on ritual and more focus on worship, for whatever that matters. there was/is plenty of heresy and false prosecution in the the protestants denominations, and no real difference save in what building they go to on sundays. Martin Luther was a good and virtuious man, but one should never under-estimate the powers of human stupidity.

odd stuff: the US was populated mostly by WASP's(white anglo-saxon protestants). more protestants commit suicide than catholics, due to a lessor sense of belonging in the differentdenominations. protewstants pray to Jesus, catholics pray to him saints and mary(rarely do you hear a catholic tack "in jesus's name" to the end of a prayer)

The short answer is :they are spelled differently http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cg...cons/joker.gif

The Orthadox Church and Catholic Church were the two main branches of the origonal Roman christan church .
When Rome finally divided into two {Western and Eastern Empires} the church was also split between them {so to speak} .
When Western the Roman Empire fell , the church {Catholic} survived and created a virtual Emperor to govern it {the Pope}.
Origonally the church was run by the Emperor Constantine then successive Emperors , that's why it split , there were two Emperors thus two church heads thus two churches} .
The Eastern Roman Empire {Byzantium to us} survived basically intact for another thousand years and kept the origonal tradition of the church head being the Emperor {things were more complex "on paper" but that was the socio-political/religous reality} .
When Byzantium fell , Russia , which was Orthadox and wanted to stay such , saw it's chance and steped in to claim leadership of the Orthadox church ... naturally there were those who questioned this . Today some look to Alexandria and the Koptic {Orthadox and sort of Byzantine in culture} whilst others seem to look to Greece {The commies in Russia caused great damage to Russias' claims to leadership in the Orthadox world} ... as usual , these modern religions can't make up their minds http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cg...icons/wink.gif
The basic differences are cosmetic , but in practical terms as I understand it , Orthadox Preists can {and I gather are encouraged too} marry and breed , worship focused on Icons {special "holy" pictures} as representing a connection to whatever they are of {ie : an Icon of the virgin -or at she said she was http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cg...ns/biggrin.gif -Mary would be a mystical conection to Mary rather like a web-cam internet connection http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cg...icons/wink.gif {to the catholics , this is Idolatry and thus a sin} .
I would imagine that the Orthadox church is still rather well organised due to having been created by the highly bureaucratic Byzantines {it was after all an official organ of state and arm of Government} just like the catholic church inherrited the Western Roman Empires' love of monolithic bureacratic structure .
Orthadox people tend to be a bit less "anal" than catholics and less masochistic , but more fatalistic {mostly due to various events in history such as the Mongol conquest of Russia and Turkish domination of Greece etc} . It is traditional for Orthadox preists to grow a full beard {this was the Tradition in the Eastern Roman Empire} and for Catholic to NOT grow a beard {as the origonal Romans considered beards barbaric ... strange that they considered slavery and genocide civilised but that's Romans for you} .

Note , Orthadox is NOT the same as Protestant That is another branch again . Postino was wrong there . Protestantism was begun by Martin Luther {who was a rabid anti-semit , who wanted to exterminate Jews , Gypsies and bring back the worst excesses of the witch hunts but thankfully never got enough support in that . Reading his writings is a strange experience to say the least ... apparantly Hitler was quite impressed by them as he translated much of Luther from old to modern German for his own twisted speaches . History is weird at times} as an attempt to change the Catholic church its' self and then {when that failed} grew to become a separate church in its' own right and is as such more a child of Catholisism whereas the Orthadox church is equal to the Catholic Church in origin as both of those came from the same beginings at the same time and are direct children of the origonal Roman Church which is a Child of several Periods of Pre-constantine christianity {including a period where they exterminated most Mithralites , then took many Mithralite dogmas and practices -like 25th december for their gods' birthday , communion and confession ... bizare history} which is a child of Judaism .

An intersting point of fact is that Jesus was actually a Nasarine which is a branch of Judaism which still exists ... christianity in general is thus flawed from the get go {also , the town of Nasarus did not even exist until nearly three decades after his supposed death ... it is one of many flaws in successive translations whiich are convienently ignored by the various churches as keeping their flocks happy and loyal is more important that keeping their own dogma truthful ... religion is weird }

Do a web search on The Orthadox Church and you will get a lot of information .

Hpoe that helped some .

DOH

right on Frost, i stand corrected. i was drunk last night and had my orthoxies and protestants confused, and i had the urge to bitch about something.

i heard that nazareth didnt exist at jesus birth, but later found that it, in fact, did (but not the nazareth we know today) - there was some more wierd stuff about that in holy blood/holy grail, but it actually isnt true.

the early romans (julius, augustus) believed that beards were barbaric but were not christian at the time. the later ones (such as hadrian) adopted a more greco/roman view and began wearing them. Beards were signs of piety in the orders and many many preists in the roman church wore them even early on

Their hats are a little different.