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Originally Posted by zeek
Right. So you trace the authority of your institution back to the founder. But, then so have the Roman Catholics and it hasn't kept them free of world historic blunders. How do you view that? Does your church have a monopoly on GEP?
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God's Eternal Purpose is one for all, isn't it? Nobody can claim a monopoly on GEP but God.
The Orthodox Church shares a common history with Western Christianity for roughly the first 1,000 years of the Christian experience. However, during the Middle Ages, developments in the West led the Latin Church to drift away from the Church in the East. We believe that although the Church of Christ exists fully or perfectly in one communion alone, it may be found imperfectly or by participation in others ‑ inasmuch as they, too, possess certain gifts or endowments that belong by right to the one Church.
As for the story of the Great Schism, i.e. how the Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic Churches split, you may check out this article: Patriarchates, Bishops, and Popes - Is the Catholic Church the direct line from Peter?
http://wellthoughtoutlife.blogspot.r...-popes-is.html
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How does that work? Do you believe in transubstantiation?
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The EO teach the Real Presence of Christ in the Holy Eucharist but they do not attempt to explain how it happens - it is a Mystery. We do not use scholastic philosophical words such as "transubstantiation" in an attempt to define this great Mystery. The Eucharist (literally “thanksgiving”) is the Mystery in which the bread and wine of offering are changed by the Holy Spirit into the true Body and true Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ.
From "The Catechism of St. Philaret": "In the exposition of the faith by the Eastern Patriarchs, it is said that the word transubstantiation is not to be taken to define the manner in which the bread and wine are changed into the Body and Blood of the Lord; for this none can understand but God; but only thus much is signified, that the bread truly, really, and substantially becomes the very true Body of the Lord, and the wine the very Blood of the Lord."
From Yahoo answers:
Q.: Do Orthodox Christians believe in transubstantiation?
Answer: Yes/no.
We believe in metaousiosis, which is parsed as exact Greek for "transubstantiation" (both mean "change of substance/essence"). The reason why we reject "transubstantiation" is because the word has a complex philosophical rationalization behind it, whereas the Orthodox have always strongly rejected rationalization. All that metaousiosis teaches is that the Holy Spirit transforms the bread and wine somehow into the body and blood of Christ, but the manner, means, and meaning are a mystery. That is, we don't try to explain the sacrament, and some Orthodox believe even metaousiosis goes too far in explanation.
PS The Doctrine of Transubstantiation in the Orthodox Church
http://orthodoxyandheterodoxy.org/20...thodox-church/