The Orthodox Church was the Church founded by our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ as described in the pages of the New Testament. Its history can be traced in unbroken continuity from the day of Pentecost and the Twelve Apostles. Incredible as it seems, for more than nineteen centuries it has continued in her undiminished and unchanged faith and practice. Today her apostolic doctrine, worship, and structure remain intact. Many are surprised to learn that for the first 1000 years of Christianity there was one church. It was in the 11th century that a disastrous split occurred, which resulted in the establishment of a Western Church under the Pope of Rome separating itself from the from the Orthodox Church of the east. The Papacy then sought to establish itself over all of Christendom and finally succeeded in western Europe. However, the remaining original church in the east rejected the claims of papal supremacy over Christendom and remained steadfast to their belief that Christ and no other is the High Priest of his Church. As time passed, the church of the west became known as the Roman Catholic Church and the remaining church in the east became widely referred to as the Eastern Orthodox Church.
To this day, the Orthodox Church maintains that the Church is the living Body of Jesus Christ on earth. The Holy Spirit dwells within it and its people make up its body. Its worshipers believe that the Orthodox Church is Christ on earth and like him it is both Divine and Human, unchanging and forever and not even the gates of Hell can prevail against it. This is not to say that Hell has not tried. For almost two thousand years the Orthodox Church has suffered much to maintain its faith. Its Sufferings have been so great that it has earned the title by some western theologians as the Church of Martyrs. In this century alone it is estimated that over 20 million of its faithful have been killed because of their religious convictions. Despite its imprisonment in an antagonistic eastern and near eastern culture where it struggled for centuries to survive, despite numerous attempts to destroy it through persecutions, mass executions and the wholesale destruction of its church buildings, it continues to this day, unchanged and victorious.
It was from the religious and political western European world that the vast majority of early colonists came to make their homes in the new world. Here they could be free to live without fear or threat of recrimination from the religious edicts of Western Christianity. Even though they came seeking religious freedom they brought with them many of the convictions of the Western Europe they left behind.
When the Orthodox "latecomers" from eastern Europe finally arrived in North America, they were often ignored as a foreign minority. The religious and cultural climate of the New World was already deeply entrenched and these Orthodox people, who had undergone centuries of persecution were often afraid to open their faith to strangers in a strange land. Thus, rather than mingle with an open religious culture, with many divergent ideas and over 2000 different Christian denominations, they tended to maintain their Old World ethnic identity, even to the point of retaining their native languages in their worship. Outsiders who visited their churches were often unable to understand what was said or done. But times have changed and new generations of Orthodox Christians have been born and raised in the freedom of this new land. They have melted into the pot of Americana and have no fear of this culture once considered strange by their parents or the religious persecution they once suffered. They have been reared in the truth of the one Church that Christ established but are also as much a part of the American Culture as "baseball and apple pie".
With new American generations the Orthodox Church is reaching out to teach and spread the faith. People devoted to Christ, but distressed and frustrated with their religious life are taking the Orthodox Church seriously. After all, it only makes since that the Church born on the day of Pentecost and from which the Bible came, would be the Church where the faith described in the Bible could be lived and preserved. The Church which brought Orthodoxy to America is now bringing North America to Orthodoxy. New people are being introduced to the faith and worship of the Orthodox Church. New churches are being established in cities and towns from coast to coast. With renewed vision, most established churches have made the transition to English in their worship services and many new converts to the faith have added new zeal to the spreading of the faith. Today the Orthodox Church, the Vineyard of Christ, is growing in America!