The best tools for learning the basics of Orthodox Christianity are the ones that get you praying with the Church, not only reading about it. Our list starts with Orthodox Daily Companion (on iPhone, Android, and the web), which walks you through the Church’s day; then the Orthodox Study Bible; Metropolitan Kallistos Ware’s The Orthodox Church and The Orthodox Way; Frederica Mathewes-Green’s Welcome to the Orthodox Church; Fr. Thomas Hopko’s The Orthodox Faith, free online; a good prayer book; Ancient Faith’s podcasts; and the free study guides on this site. Two of these are ours, the Companion and the guides, and we say so where they appear.

One thing is deliberately missing from the numbered list, because it is not a tool at all. We start with it.

Start Here: The One Thing No Tool Replaces

Orthodoxy is not first a body of information. It is a life of worship, and it is learned the way a language is learned: by being among the people who speak it. When Nathanael asked whether anything good could come out of Nazareth, Philip did not hand him a summary. He said, “Come and see” (John 1:46).

So before any book or app, find an Orthodox parish and go to the Divine Liturgy on a Sunday morning. Stand at the back if you like. Stay for the coffee hour, introduce yourself to the priest, and ask whether the parish has an inquirers’ or catechism class. If you are nervous, read what to expect at your first Orthodox service first. Everything below is for the other six days of the week.

How We Chose These Tools

  • Introductory. Each one makes sense to someone who has never been to an Orthodox service.
  • Orthodox in source. Written, published, or built by Orthodox Christians, so you learn the faith as the Church presents it rather than as its critics describe it.
  • Practical. Each one leads somewhere: to prayer, to Scripture, to the services, or to a conversation with a priest.

1. Orthodox Daily Companion: Learn the Faith by Keeping the Church’s Day

Books teach you what the Church believes. The calendar teaches you how the Church lives, and for most newcomers that is the harder half to learn, because it cannot be done in a weekend. Every day of the Orthodox year has its saints, its appointed readings, and its place in a rhythm of feasts and fasts. You learn it the way the faithful always have: one day at a time.

Orthodox Daily Companion is built for exactly that. Each morning it shows:

  • The saints and feasts of the day, with each saint’s life a tap away. A year of this is a year of meeting the Church’s family, from the apostles to the new martyrs. (Why it matters: the lives of the saints.)
  • The appointed Epistle and Gospel, the same passages being read in parishes on that calendar, so your Bible reading follows the Church’s.
  • Whether today is a fast, a fish day, or a fast-free day. Seeing it daily is how Wednesdays, Fridays, and the four great fasts stop being a rule you look up and become a rhythm you live. (The reason behind it: fasting in the Orthodox Church.)
  • A short morning and evening rule: the Trisagion, the Creed, the Jesus Prayer, and prayers of the saints, in collapsible sections so a beginner is not overwhelmed.
  • A saying of the Fathers, and a private journal for the line you want to remember.

Where to get it, and what it costs. On iPhone, it is a free download that includes the daily synaxarion, the prayers, and the daily saying, with a premium subscription for the full readings, reminders, and widget. On Android, it is a subscription with a 7-day free trial. On the web, it runs in any browser, free for seven days and then $5.99 a month. It follows the New (Revised Julian) Calendar. Our iOS and Android app guides cover the alternatives, including Old Calendar options.

Disclosure. The Companion is made by the Orthodox Calendar Company, the same people behind this site, and we put it first because we built it for this purpose. Weigh that as you see fit. More on the Companion’s page.

2. The Orthodox Study Bible

The Orthodox Study Bible (Thomas Nelson) pairs a translation of the Old Testament from the Greek Septuagint, the version most often quoted in the New Testament and still read by the Orthodox Church, with the New King James New Testament, and surrounds both with notes drawn from the Church Fathers and short articles on Orthodox worship and practice. For a beginner, the notes are the point: they show you how the Church has read each passage.

How to use it: start with one Gospel, a chapter a day, and read the notes. The same text and notes are in the Orthodox Study Bible app for phones, whose free Today screen carries the day’s readings. Our guide to what Bible Orthodox Christians use explains the Septuagint and the longer Old Testament.

3. Metropolitan Kallistos Ware: The Orthodox Church and The Orthodox Way

Since it first appeared in 1963, The Orthodox Church by the late Metropolitan Kallistos Ware has introduced generations of English-speaking readers to Orthodoxy. Its first half is the history, from the apostles through the councils, the schism, and the modern churches; its second half is the faith and worship. If you read one book about the Church, read this one, in its most recent edition.

Its companion, The Orthodox Way, turns from the Church’s story to the inner life: God as Trinity, creation, prayer, and the way to Him. It is shorter and more personal, and worth reading slowly. Our review of The Orthodox Way says more.

4. Frederica Mathewes-Green: Welcome to the Orthodox Church

Welcome to the Orthodox Church: An Introduction to Eastern Christianity (Paraclete Press, 2015) takes a different approach. Frederica Mathewes-Green walks the reader through a typical parish over a series of visits: the icons, the services, the people, and the questions a visitor from a Protestant or Catholic background actually asks. It is warm, practical, and easy to read. Many people find it the best book to read before or just after their first visit, with Ware to follow.

5. Fr. Thomas Hopko: The Orthodox Faith (Free Online)

Fr. Thomas Hopko’s The Orthodox Faith is a four-volume handbook, Doctrine and Scripture, Worship, Church History, and Spirituality, written for religious education in the Orthodox Church in America. Its short sections make it the nearest thing to a catechism you can read a page at a time. The revised text is free to read on the OCA’s website, and the OCA has published study questions to go with it, which makes it a good choice for a study group or for working through with a sponsor.

6. A Prayer Book

The Church has an old principle: the law of prayer is the law of belief. What Orthodox Christians pray is what they believe, so a prayer book is one of the best textbooks of the faith there is. The Ancient Faith Prayer Book, edited by Archimandrite Vassilios Papavassiliou, is compact and in modern English, with morning, evening, mealtime, and pre-Communion prayers. If your parish uses a different book, use theirs, so you pray in the same words as the people around you.

Start small. Our guide to starting an Orthodox prayer rule explains how much to take on and why to ask your priest, and our Orthodox prayers collection has the Trisagion, the Lord’s Prayer, and other prayers you can begin with today.

7. Ancient Faith: Podcasts and Radio

The free Ancient Faith app (on iPhone and Android) streams three 24-hour Orthodox internet radio stations and a large library of podcasts from Ancient Faith Ministries. For a beginner, the archive of Fr. Thomas Hopko’s Speaking the Truth in Love is a treasure: years of plain, wise talks on belief and practice by the same priest who wrote The Orthodox Faith.

A suggestion: choose one program and go through it in order. Listening widely is easy; listening well takes a plan.

8. The Free Study Guides on This Site

We built these for exactly the reader of this article, and they are free:

9. Official Church Websites

The jurisdictions themselves publish a great deal of reliable material. The Orthodox Church in America’s oca.org has the daily readings, the lives of the saints, and a long archive of questions and answers, along with Fr. Hopko’s books. The Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America publishes articles on the faith at goarch.org, together with its free Daily Readings and Digital Chant Stand apps, which let you follow the texts of the services in English and Greek. When a website and your parish disagree on a point of practice, follow your parish: practice varies between jurisdictions, and your priest knows yours.

10. The Orthodox Daily Browser Extension

If you spend your day at a computer, Orthodox Daily is a free extension for Chrome and Edge that replaces your new tab with today’s saint or feast, whether it is a fast day and what it permits, and a prayer. It works offline, on your device, with no account and nothing tracked. It is ours too, and it is the gentlest possible reminder, many times a day, of what day the Church is keeping.

A Sensible Order for a Beginner

  1. The first month: go to the Divine Liturgy on Sundays. Install Orthodox Daily Companion and read the saint of the day each morning. Read Welcome to the Orthodox Church.
  2. Months two and three: read Ware’s The Orthodox Church. Read one Gospel slowly in the Orthodox Study Bible. Ask the priest about a small daily rule of prayer, and get a prayer book.
  3. After that: The Orthodox Way, Hopko’s The Orthodox Faith a section at a time, and a conversation with your priest about becoming a catechumen. Our guides to the catechumenate and the steps to convert explain what comes next.

What to Be Careful With

  • Online arguments. Comment sections and polemical videos will teach you the faith’s quarrels before its prayers. Learn the faith first.
  • AI chatbots. They are fluent, confident, and regularly wrong about Orthodox practice. Use them, if at all, for a definition you then check, never for spiritual direction.
  • Advanced texts too early. The Philokalia is a treasure, but it was written largely for monks under close guidance. Read our introduction to the Philokalia for newcomers before you open it.
  • Doing it alone. Every tool here works better with a priest, a sponsor, or a study group. Orthodoxy has never been a self-taught faith.

Common Questions

What is the best book for learning the basics of Orthodox Christianity?

For history and doctrine, Metropolitan Kallistos Ware’s The Orthodox Church has been the standard English introduction for decades. For what you will actually see and hear in a parish, Frederica Mathewes-Green’s Welcome to the Orthodox Church is the friendliest place to start. Many people read the second first.

Can I learn the basics of Orthodoxy for free?

Yes. Fr. Thomas Hopko’s four-volume The Orthodox Faith is free to read on the Orthodox Church in America’s website, the Ancient Faith app and podcasts are free, the study guides on this site are free, and so is the Orthodox Daily browser extension. Orthodox Daily Companion is free to download on iPhone, with a free trial on Android and the web.

Can I learn Orthodox Christianity entirely online?

You can learn a great deal about it online, but not the faith itself. Orthodoxy is learned by worshipping, fasting, confessing, and receiving the sacraments in a parish, with a priest who knows you. Use online tools to prepare for and support that, not to replace it.

How long does it take to learn the basics?

A few months of reading and regular attendance will give you the shape of the faith. Formal preparation for joining the Church, the catechumenate, commonly lasts many months to a year or more, and your priest decides when you are ready.

What is the best app for someone new to Orthodoxy?

We recommend Orthodox Daily Companion, which is our own app: it introduces a saint each day, gives the appointed readings, explains the fast, and provides a simple morning and evening rule of prayer. It runs on iPhone, Android, and the web.