Thinking About Eastern Orthodoxy: A Primer for Evangelicals

The majority of American evangelicals view Eastern Orthodoxy as a small group of odd folks who smell of incense and are basically just ethnically oriented (Russian, Greek) Pope-less Catholics. The only real theological difference they could cite between the Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholicism would be the Papacy. Everything else looks and sounds the same.

Over the past few years, however, there has been an uptick in interest in Eastern Orthodoxy. Most believe this has been prompted by the fact that Pope Francis made it very hard for Roman Catholicism to argue that it is the “ancient church” when it is clear Francis (and Leo) are not overly concerned about “Apostolic tradition” or the “ancient” views of pretty much anyone at all. So folks fleeing a surface-level evangelicalism that has no understanding of church history, nor its place in that history, have been turning to Eastern Orthodoxy as an alternative. In this article, I’ll point out 1) why East/West dialogue is difficult, 2) how Eastern Orthodoxy is not as ancient or stable as people often think, and 3) some of the main divisions between Protestantism and Eastern Orthodoxy.

The East/West Divide

There have been some attempts to write books introducing the issues surrounding Eastern Orthodoxy amongst evangelicals, but they all run into the same problem. And it is the problem that is central to our thinking in this short article as well. We in the West think in a completely different manner than those in the East. Since most American evangelicals do not travel internationally, let alone globally, it is difficult to bridge the conceptual gap that separates us. We want to ask questions that Eastern Orthodoxy simply does not think relevant to answer. And it is this conceptual and linguistic barrier that we have to understand.

Now, our new global world, created by the internet, is changing this dynamic. But the defining structures of Eastern Orthodoxy, Roman Catholicism, and the various Protestant denominations, were solidified long before the new era dawned. And the Eastern mindset remains strong in, at least, true and historically relevant Eastern Orthodoxy. I would illustrate the difference that makes dialogue difficult in just this way: you can turn to a book, to a document, to a Papal Encyclical or some such item, to define what Roman Catholicism means, say, by the Bodily Assumption of Mary. You can look to the Council of Trent for Rome’s definition of justification, or the Mass. Yes, modern Rome has become a lot more “squishy” on being so clear and so forthright with her doctrines, but that is not due to a change in worldview, it is due to the decline of Western culture as a whole.

But when you ask Eastern Orthodoxy about dogmas, you do not, generally, get a reference to a canon or statement. You get . . . the liturgy. Real Eastern Orthodoxy (not the Westernized version common on the internet, originating in the United States mainly) defines its beliefs by her liturgical practice, her prayers, her saints, and her history.¹ They often find our “forensically minded” questions to miss the point. The East embraces mystery, experience, the energeiai (energies), the chant, the incense. And while both Rome and the East celebrate saints, those saints in the Eastern tradition have even more of a “mystical” role in defining the faith.²

This is why you can encounter a wide range of theological expressions and understandings coming from Orthodox sources. When the primary lens through which one sees theology is mystical in nature, informed by prayers, chants, and “energies,” the range of expression, at least as it is viewed from the more logically oriented West, seems wide indeed.³ But even here, the Orthodox might not understand why we do not see the coherence of even what appear to us to be divergent or even contradictory views. Again, I refer to the Orthodox who live in the lands where Orthodoxy is the primary expression of Christian belief. American Orthodoxy is often lacking the same kind, or depth, of attachment to the mystical forms of expression and faith.

The Big Orthodox Commitment: Never Changing

An Unbroken Line from the Apostles?

3. See Knox Brown, “Divine Energies: Eastern Orthodoxy’s Strangest and Most Important Doctrine,” Christ Over All, May 6, 2026. For an evangelical assessment of how this mystical lens reshapes every doctrinal locus, see Farag, Eastern Orthodoxy.

Orthodoxy prides itself on never changing. The faith claims that it is the continuation of Apostolic Christianity, the very ancient church itself. And you can surely make a claim that at least from the ninth century or so, Eastern, Byzantine Christianity has remained very stable and consistent. Surely the modern period is wearing away at that edifice, as the current Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople demonstrates. Indeed, it really seems that Eastern Orthodoxy has never faced as wide a variety of challenges as it does today, and to be honest, it is struggling to respond. Until the very modern period it has been able to depend upon the “sameness” of the nations in which it is supreme, but with the advent of modern transportation, the collapse of communism and the opening of Russia, and the general advance of secular unbelief across the northern hemisphere, Orthodoxy is being strained to its utmost limits.⁴

4. As an example of strain in the United States, according to a leading researcher in Eastern Orthodoxy, Alexei Krindatch, “between 2010 and 2020, the number of all Eastern Orthodox Church adherents dropped from 816,653 to 675,765 (-17%), and their number of regular attendees declined from 212,212 to 183,020 (-14%).” See “US Religion Census 2020: Dramatic Changes in American Orthodox Churches” (2020 US Religion Census, 2021). In light of this research, Alexander Breytenbach rightly points out, “To merely replace the adherents that were lost from 2010–2020 (140,888 [people]) would require all of the 2,000 Eastern Orthodox parishes to sustain this [post-2021] growth rate for seven consecutive years and also not lose any of their existing adherents.” See Alexander Breytenbach, “Masculinity, Eastern Orthodoxy, and the Search for Stability,” Christ Over All, May 15, 2026.

But still the current attraction is stability, the ancient church standing in the mists of time, immovable in an age of surface-level, plastic Christianity. And one thing is for certain: for those looking for serious worship, Orthodoxy offers a very unique entry into the field. There is truly nothing in Orthodox worship that could be seen as pandering to modern sensibilities of dress or entertainment. The purposeful rejection of such things is very attractive to many.

A Ninth-Century Church in the Twenty-First Century

But the reality is, Eastern Orthodoxy is ninth-century Byzantine state religion, ossified (externally) and evolved mystically (internally). Fossilized in time. It is not Apostolic Christianity. Many centuries had elapsed since the Apostles lived and taught by the time the complex of traditions and developments that is Eastern Orthodoxy came together and took the form it continues to hold to this day.⁵ The process whereby that form of religious expression developed is long and complex, to be certain. One of the crystallizing events that brought Eastern Orthodoxy into self-expression was the so-called Seventh Ecumenical Council, Nicea II, held in 787 under the direction and control of Empress Irene. It was a part of the great “Iconoclasm Controversy” of that century where the issue of icons and their veneration tore at the very fabric of Byzantine Christianity.

5. This is Schooping’s main argument throughout Disillusioned, particularly in his analyses of iconology, Mariology, and ecclesiology as historical accretions rather than apostolic deposits. See also Alexander Breytenbach, “Masculinity, Eastern Orthodoxy, and the Search for Stability,” Christ Over All, May 15, 2026, who documents that major figures within Orthodoxy itself—Epiphanius of Salamis, Athanasius, and John of Damascus—took positions on icons or canon that contradict the dogma later canonized by Orthodoxy. On the canon question specifically, see Edmon L. Gallagher and John D. Meade, The Biblical Canon Lists from Early Christianity: Texts and Analysis (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017). For a parallel evangelical treatment, see Todd Jamison and James Wright, Whose Orthodoxy? Evangelical or Eastern: Testing the Traditions, Resting in Christ (New Yurt Books, 2026), which presses the question of whether Orthodox practice has “truly been unchanged since the time of the apostles.”

In 754 the Council of Hieria had not only claimed to be the Seventh Ecumenical Council itself, but had condemned the veneration of icons.⁶ This was known as iconoclasm. The lovers of icons, the iconophiles, rejected the council’s conclusions, and when power moved in the Empire, Empress Irene, an iconophile, together with the powerful monks, moved to change things. Nicea II condemned Hieria, forced everyone associated with it to repent (even before supposedly judging the issue itself!), and established the propriety of the veneration of icons. This council of Nicea II in 787 is considered the final of the great ecumenical councils, and it is held to be infallible by both the West (Roman Catholicism) and the East. However, it is interpreted and “lived out” very differently in the East and the West. But its victory over the iconoclasts was the last major conciliar development that forged Orthodoxy’s self-understanding, and anyone familiar with Orthodox worship knows the central importance of iconography therein.

Primary Issues in Evangelical Thinking

The Filioque Clause (“from the Son”)

Most evangelicals do not know what the Filioque is (the phrase “and the Son” in the modified version of the Nicene Creed, referring to the Spirit proceeding from the Father and the Son), nor do they know this was one of a number of key issues that led to the “Great Schism” between East and West in 1054. The East’s focus upon the issue has been central to its self-identity for centuries, though that seems to be changing on both sides of the controversy. The West condemned the East as Trinitarian heretics for denying it; the East reciprocated in like manner.

6. See Richard Price, trans., The Acts of the Second Council of Nicaea (787), 2 vols., Translated Texts for Historians 68 (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2018), esp. 1:458–522 for Hieria’s Horos. For the broader history of the council, see Leslie Brubaker and John Haldon, Byzantium in the Iconoclast Era, c. 680–850: A History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 186–203.

One of the primary misconceptions of American evangelicals is that Orthodoxy is just Popeless Catholicism. This view comes from ignorance of the worship, ecclesiology, sacraments, and theology of both Catholicism and Orthodoxy. Are there many areas of overlap? Of course. Are there sometimes subtle, yet important distinctions? Yes, very much so.

The Five Solas of the Reformation

Does Orthodoxy believe in, for example, the Five Solas of the Reformation? No, most definitely not. And while their arguments against, for example, sola scriptura echo Rome’s here in America, in native Orthodox countries the rejection takes on a different flavor, one that again leans more into mysticism, energies, and tradition. The bare categories of “sufficiency” are outside the frame of most Orthodox awareness. Similarly, when we engage with them on the gospel, the entire vocabulary changes to mystical experience, and especially theosis, the idea of participation in the divine nature. While the West emphasizes sin and atonement, the East has a very different view of man, and it emphasizes union with God and participation in God’s life. The East has been deeply influenced by ancient Neo-Platonist thought (mediated into it by the writings of Pseudo-Dionysius).⁷ All of these influences cause stumbling blocks for the Evangelical who wishes to truly have a gospel conversation.

7. See Andrew Louth, Denys the Areopagite (London: Continuum, 1989); Paul Rorem, Pseudo-Dionysius: A Commentary on the Texts and an Introduction to Their Influence (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993). For its absorption into Eastern mystical theology, see Lossky, Mystical Theology, chap. 2.

Conclusion

Have I met Orthodox who had a solid understanding of the viewpoints of others, and could dialogue on these topics? I have, but it has been a rarity. Evangelicals and Orthodox stand on far sides of a wide divide, and few have learned to build even the smallest bridges across. Thankfully, there have been some changes recently, however, with the publication of new books from the Evangelical side.⁸ Since this article is meant only to spur thought (and provide some foundational information to assist in the endeavor), these books can be of assistance in continuing a study of Eastern Orthodoxy.

8. See Joshua Schooping, Disillusioned: Why I Left the Eastern Orthodox Priesthood and Church, 2nd ed. (Independently published, 2023); Todd Jamison and James Wright, Whose Orthodoxy? Evangelical or Eastern: Testing the Traditions, Resting in Christ (New Yurt Books, 2026); Samuel Farag, Eastern Orthodoxy: Through the Lens of Sola Scriptura (Free Grace Press, 2026). There are also a number of excellent video resources provided by Jason Wallace at Christ Presbyterian Church in Magna, Utah, available at orthodox.video.