As all probably already know, our Church is truly a part of Eastern Christianity. Although we are within the Catholic Communion of Churches, we are also basically Eastern Christians.
Yes there is only one Faith. But what is little realized is that the roots of this one Faith lead us back to Middle Eastern and Semitic ways of thinking. The Early Church was an Eastern Church. By “the East” then, we are not referring to Indonesia or China but to the East with which those in the Scriptures were familiar: the Middle East, Greece and Asia Minor. It is there that Christianity began. This is obvious to anyone who takes the time to briefly trace Christianity’s birth and formation.
- Jesus and His disciples were “Middle Eastern” by birth, culture and, of course, language;
- The Bible is an Eastern book: its languages (Hebrew and Greek), its authors, the people it primarily addresses, the philosophy it espouses (Semitic), and its cultural context are all Middle Eastern;
- The “headquarters” of the Christian faith is the Middle East. It was from there that the apostles were sent out with the Gospel. At least forty-four of the forty-six Local Churches which were founded by Christ’s apostles were in the East;
- For more than 1,000 years, with the exception of Rome, all the major centers of Christian belief were found in the East, in Jerusalem, Alexandria, Antioch and Constantinople;
- The fundamental dogmas regarding the faith were formulated and defended in the East (e.g., that Christ is “of the same essence” with the Father, that He is fully God and fully man, that the Holy Spirit is a divine Person, and the nature of the Trinity);
- The very first schools of Biblical interpretation were in the East, that is Antioch and Alexandria. Their perspectives on interpretation still influence much of our understanding of the Scriptures; and
- The foundational Church Councils (e.g., the first seven, from 325-787) were all held in the East. The overwhelming majority of the bishops in attendance were from the East.
Denying our Eastern roots is like denying our parents. To live the Christian life in such cultural and historical ignorance is to lose a great part of our identity. The journey back to Christianity’s beginning not only leads us to a place foreign to us today but also to a culture and way of thinking about life which is very much different from our Western, American way.
We’re looking at the roots of our Church.