The Greek or Eastern Orthodox Church and the Roman Catholic Church

The Greek or Eastern Orthodox Church and the Roman Catholic Church

The Greek or Eastern Orthodox Church holds a great belief in the

“word-picture” of the church having believers in heaven as well as on

earth, spanning time as well as space. The worship is incredibly

spiritual and mysterious and a huge amount of incense and candles

contribute to this by setting a frightfully heavenly aurora. Much

belief relies on traditional methods of the church and what ideas have

been passed down through generations and are drawn also from the Holy

Scriptures. Both of these can be seen through the way the actual

church as building is designed and decorated.

The ceiling is a great dome, which is there to represent heaven.

Usually pictures of Jesus and his mother are found upon it. The floor

symbolises earth and the nave is in the shape of a square which, is to

show Gods orderly world and each of its corners that are in

remembrance of the four evangelists. The real thing that strikes you

when you first enter a Greek Orthodox Church is the huge wooden or

stone screen, separating the nave and sanctuary usually about five

panels high. It is the iconostasis and is covered in beautiful,

colourful icons and in the centre of it are the royal doors. These are

only passed through by the elected priest (chosen as Gods

representative) and ordained clergy who prepare the Divine Liturgy

upon the high altar to be taken out for the communion ceremony. The

royal doors usually carry icons of the evangelists and Annunciation.

There are side doors to the iconostasis which are used by the deacons

and servers and they sometimes show the archangels Michael and Gabriel

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... feel as though they are in the presence of God whilst in worship. This

alone may be a very special feeling.

The reason for there being so many different types of Christian

churches is that in 1054 the Great Schism took place separating

eastern Christianity and western Christianity and then new churches

began to form such as Protestant from the Roman Catholic church and

all the different Orthodox churches formed.

The churches that I chose to study ways of worship and its meaning

have some relevance in comparison to each other, for example the way

the seven sacraments are used and the way the services are made as

Godly as possible through incense, candles, icons, etc…… These manage

to settle people’s worries with prayer, help cure disease through God

and settle disagreements using the bibles teaching.