The Church within the Empire
There were several doctrinal disputes from the 4th century onwards. Some of them led to the calling of Ecumenical councils to try to resolve them. The Church in Egypt (Patriarchate of Alexandria) split into two groups following the Council of Chalcedon (451), owing to a dispute about the relation between the divine and human natures of Christ. Eventually this led to each group having its own Pope. Those that remained in communion with the other patriarchs were called "Melkites" (the king's men, because Constantinople was the city of the emperors), and are today known as the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Alexandria, led by Pope Petros VII, while those who disagreed with the findings of the Council of Chalcedon are today known as the Coptic Orthodox Patriarchate of Alexandria, led by Pope Shenouda III. There was a similar split in Syria. Those who disagreed with the Council of Chalcedon are sometimes called "Oriental Orthodox" to distinguish them from the Eastern Orthodox, who accepted the Council of Chalcedon. The Oriental Orthodox are also sometimes referred to as "monophysites" or "non-Chalcedonians", although today the Coptic Orthodox Church denies that it is monophysite and prefers the term "miaphysite", to denote the "joined" nature of Christ.
An important symbol for the eastern Orthodoxy and its spread north to the Slavic peoples was the construction in the 530s of Hagia Sophia, a most impressive church building in Constantinople, under emperor Justinian I.
Muslim conquest and Iconoclasm
In the seventh century the areas administered by the bishops of Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem were conquered by Muslim Arabs, and the native Christians were treated as second-class citizens. Westerners tend to think of Christianity as dominant in society for a long period of history, but this has definitely not been the case for Christians in three of the five ancient churches, who have been in Muslim-dominated societies for 13 centuries. It was the Muslims who first opposed the Christian use of icons, though many Christians held a similar doctrine, based on Judaizing tendencies within the Church. The use of icons was defended and upheld at the Seventh Ecumenical Council. The end of that council is still celebrated as the "Triumph of Orthodoxy" in Orthodox churches today, and icons remain a central part of Orthodox faith and practice.
Conversion of the Slavs
In the ninth and tenth centuries, Orthodoxy made great inroads into Eastern Europe and Russia. This work was made possible by the work of Saints Cyril and Methodius, who translated the Bible and many of the prayer books into Slavonic. They found themselves competing with missionaries from the Roman diocese in places like Great Moravia and Bulgaria. After being driven out of Great Moravia, they were later welcomed in Bulgaria, in part because they prayed in the people's native language rather than in Latin, as the Roman priests did. Today the Russian Orthodox Church, in spite of 70 years of persecution under the atheistic government of the USSR, is the largest of the Orthodox Churches.
The West Departs
In the 11th century the Great Schism took place between Rome and Constantinople, which led to the Church of the West, the Roman Catholic Church, to become distinct from the Churches of the East, although, in practice, contacts were maintained informally for many years. There were doctrinal issues like the filioque clause and the authority of the Pope involved in the split, but they were exacerbated by cultural and linguistic differences (Greek East and Latin West).
The final breach is often considered to have arisen as a result of the sacking of Constantinople by the Fourth Crusade in 1204. This Fourth Crusade had the Latin Church directly involved in a military assault against the Byzantine Empire, Constantinople, and the Orthodox Patriarchate thereof. The sacking of the Church of Holy Wisdom and establishment of the Latin Empire in 1204 is viewed with some rancor to the present day.
In 1453, the Byzantine Empire fell to the Ottoman Turks. By this time Egypt was also under Muslim control, but Orthodoxy was very strong in Russia; and so Moscow, called the Third Rome, became the new center of the church at that time.
Orthodoxy and the Reformation
Orthodoxy did not undergo the Reformation, and attitudes of the Protestant churches towards it have been ambiguous since the beginning. Lutheran Bishops led by Melanchthon sent delegates to the Patriarch of Constantinople to explore ecumenical possibilities, but the discussions went nowhere. Both sides remained cordial and brotherly, but fundamental doctrinal differences came to light, specifically regarding Holy Tradition, The Procession of the Holy Spirit, free will, Divine predestination, justification, The number of sacraments, Baptism by immersion (Orthodox) vs. sprinkling or pouring (Lutheran), and the immediate performance of Chrismation and the giving of the Eucharist to those baptized (Orthodox), the meaning of the change in the Eucharist, and the use of unleavened bread, infallibility of the Church and of the Ecumenical Councils, veneration, feasts, and invocation of saints and their icons and relics, fasts and other ecclesiastical traditions. Ultimately, the dialogue was broken off (see 16th Century Lutheran & Orthodox Exchange in External links below).
1 -[Orthodoxy]
2 -[Orthodoxy : History of Ortodoxy]
3 -[Orthodoxy : Orthodox Structure / organization]
4 -[Orthodoxy : Orthodox Theology]
5 -[Orthodoxy : The four chief Orthodox activities]
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