Search for an Orthodox church near you and you will probably find several — a Greek one, a Russian one, an Antiochian one, an OCA parish (the Orthodox Church in America), a ROCOR one (the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia), perhaps a Serbian or Romanian. You might reasonably conclude these are rival denominations. They are not. Every one confesses the same Creed (the short statement of the faith settled by the Church's first councils), serves the same Divine Liturgy on Sunday morning, and shares the same Eucharist, the Body and Blood of Christ received in Holy Communion.

The names mark administration and history, not doctrine. The Orthodox Church is not a worldwide monarchy but a communion of self-governing local churches, each shaped by the people that received the faith, all holding one faith and one Communion. The word for this is autocephaly, and with it your search results turn simple: one Church, several front doors.

One Church, Many Self-Governing Churches

The Creed confesses "one holy, catholic, and apostolic Church," not several. St. Paul writes that "there is one body and one Spirit... one Lord, one faith, one baptism" (Ephesians 4:4–5). Orthodoxy takes that unity as real and visible, expressed above all in the shared Eucharist: an Orthodox Christian from any one of these churches is not a stranger at the others.

But unity was never uniformity of administration. The Church has always existed as local assemblies gathered around their bishops — St. Ignatius of Antioch taught around the year 107 that where the bishop is, there the people should be (Epistle to the Smyrnaeans 8) — and the bishops of a region recognized a senior bishop among themselves. Apostolic Canon 34 puts it exactly: "The bishops of every nation must acknowledge him who is first among them and account him as their head, and do nothing of consequence without his consent... But neither let him (who is the first) do anything without the consent of all."

That canon is the Orthodox pattern of authority: a first who cannot act alone, and brothers who cannot act without their first. For what these churches share, see the Eastern Orthodox Church and what Orthodox Christians believe.

What Autocephaly Actually Means

Autocephaly comes from the Greek autokephalos, "self-headed." An autocephalous church is one whose chief bishop (its primate) answers to no higher bishop anywhere. It elects its own bishops, orders its own affairs, and formally recognizes saints for its calendar (what the West calls canonization) without anyone else's approval. The consecration of chrism (the holy oil used in receiving new members) is usually named among these rights too, though several autocephalous churches still receive their chrism from Constantinople by long custom.

Notice what is not on that list. Autocephaly confers no power to define doctrine, alter the Creed, or change the Mysteries (Sacraments); those belong to the whole Church together, expressed through councils of bishops. A church teaching a different faith would not be independent, but outside the Church. A lesser status is autonomy: a church governing most of its own life, but whose primate is confirmed by a mother church, as with Sinai and Finland.

Western vocabulary has no equivalent. These are not denominations, which differ from one another in doctrine or church order; nor are they Roman Catholic dioceses, whose bishops govern in their own right but under the universal jurisdiction of the Pope of Rome.

One honest note: the Church has never agreed on a single modern procedure for granting autocephaly, and that open question lies behind most disputes between local churches today.

The Ancient Patriarchates and the Newer National Churches

A patriarchate is a self-governing church headed by a bishop called a patriarch. The First Council of Nicaea in 325 did not invent the ancient patriarchates but ratified them, directing that Alexandria keep its customs and that "in Antioch and the other provinces, let the Churches retain their privileges." The Second Ecumenical Council in 381 gave Constantinople the honor next after Rome, as New Rome. Rome's separation came centuries later; we treat it in why the original Church divided.

Four ancient Eastern patriarchates remain: Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem. As nations received the faith there were added the patriarchates of Moscow, Serbia, Romania, Bulgaria and Georgia, whose independence is far older than the rest; the Church of Cyprus, ancient in its independence; and the autocephalous churches of Greece, Poland, Albania, and the Czech Lands and Slovakia. Fourteen is the usual reckoning, though the churches' own lists do not perfectly agree, and which bodies belong on them is one of the questions open between them. The Orthodox Church in America received autocephaly from Moscow in 1970, a status recognized by some local churches and not by others — which is why the OCA appears on some lists and not others.

None of this corrupts the Gospel; it obeys it. Christ sent the Apostles to "make disciples of all the nations" (Matthew 28:19). Our history of Orthodoxy traces it.

Is the Ecumenical Patriarch an Orthodox Pope?

No, and Orthodox Christians are usually emphatic about it. The Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople holds first place in the order of precedence and is called primus inter pares, "first among equals." Orthodox unity rests not on submission to a chief bishop but on identity of faith, Mysteries and worship: Apostolic Canon 34 at world scale.

That primacy includes presiding when the primates gather, convening pan-Orthodox assemblies, and speaking as a recognized voice of Orthodoxy. Constantinople also claims historic prerogatives over appeals and the churches outside the traditional Orthodox homelands; other local churches read those canons differently, and that remains a genuinely open question among them. This site does not adjudicate it.

What it does not include is universal jurisdiction. The Ecumenical Patriarch cannot appoint a bishop in Romania, overrule the Patriarch of Serbia, or define doctrine on his own authority, and no Orthodox council has ascribed infallibility to any bishop. Roman Catholic teaching, as a Catholic reader would recognize, holds that the Pope of Rome possesses immediate universal jurisdiction and, under defined conditions, teaches infallibly. Orthodoxy locates authority elsewhere: not in a bishop but in the Church herself, whose mind an Ecumenical Council expresses and the Church's reception confirms. We take that up in what makes a council ecumenical.

What Actually Differs: Language, Music, and Culture

Here is the practical answer you came for. Visit a Greek parish and a Russian parish on the same Sunday and you hear the same service: the same Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom, the same Creed, the same Eucharistic prayers. What differs:

  • Language. Some parishes serve entirely in English; some mix English with Greek, Church Slavonic, Arabic, or Romanian; a few serve almost wholly in the old language. Antiochian and OCA parishes tend to lean heavily English, and Greek and Slavic parishes vary widely — a tendency, not a rule. The only way to know is to ask.
  • Music. Greek, Antiochian, Romanian and Bulgarian parishes typically sing Byzantine chant, a single melodic line over a held drone called the ison. Russian, Serbian and many OCA parishes sing four-part harmony, or the older unison Znamenny chant. The hymns are the same everywhere; only the singing differs.
  • Calendar. Fixed feasts fall thirteen days apart between old-calendar and new-calendar parishes; see the next section.
  • Parish culture. Pews or open floor; a festival with lamb or with pierogi; how people queue to venerate icons. None of it is doctrine.
  • Pastoral custom. How often the faithful commune, how strictly fasting is applied to a given person, and how converts are received — by baptism or by chrismation, anointing with holy oil — vary by jurisdiction, by bishop, and often by the priest's judgment. Ask; do not assume.

What does not differ is the load-bearing part: the Creed, the Ecumenical Councils, the Mysteries, the Divine Liturgy, the fasting seasons, and the honor given to the Theotokos (the Virgin Mary, "the one who gave birth to God") and the saints — veneration, which Orthodoxy distinguishes sharply from the worship due to God alone.

The Calendar Question, Explained Without the Argument

In May 1923 a congress at Constantinople considered a correction to the Julian calendar, by then thirteen days behind the solar year. The resulting Revised Julian calendar was adopted in 1924 by Constantinople, Greece, Cyprus and Romania, and later by Alexandria, Antioch and Bulgaria. Jerusalem, Russia, Serbia and Georgia kept the old reckoning, as do the monasteries of Mount Athos.

The visible effect is on fixed feasts. Old-calendar parishes keep the Nativity on the Julian December 25, which presently falls on January 7 of the civil calendar — which is why Orthodox Christmas gets reported on two dates. Every fixed feast shifts those same thirteen days.

The crucial point is what was not changed. The churches deliberately left the reckoning of Pascha (Easter) untouched, so as not to violate the canons. Every autocephalous Orthodox Church, old calendar and new, computes the date of Pascha by the same traditional method, the Paschalion inherited from the early Church, so Great Lent, Pascha and Pentecost fall on the same days everywhere, every year. The chief exception is the autonomous Church of Finland, which follows the Western reckoning. Why Orthodox Pascha differs from Western Easter is explained in why Orthodox Pascha is on a different date.

The calendar is church order, not dogma. Old-calendar and new-calendar churches are in full communion and commune one another's faithful without hesitation. Feelings run deep on both sides; this site takes no side. If the question troubles you, raise it with a priest.

Why American Cities Have Overlapping Jurisdictions

The Orthodox Church's mission to North America began in 1794, when monks from Valaam landed on Kodiak Island in Alaska, among them St. Herman, the first canonized saint of America. For a century afterward the Russian mission, later a diocese, was effectively the continent's only Orthodox jurisdiction, gathering faithful of every background.

Then came 1917. The Revolution severed the American church from its support and leadership almost overnight, and through the 1920s the immigrant communities organized separately under their mother churches abroad. Hence the names on the signs:

  • Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America — under the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople; founded by Greek immigrants.
  • Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese — under the Patriarchate of Antioch, whose homeland is Syria and Lebanon; founded by Arabic-speaking immigrants, today largely English-speaking.
  • Orthodox Church in America (OCA) — autocephalous since 1970, grown out of the original Russian mission; mostly English.
  • ROCOR — the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia, formed among Russians abroad under Soviet rule; self-governing, in communion with Moscow again since 2007.
  • Serbian, Romanian, Bulgarian and Georgian dioceses — each under its own mother church.

Orthodox Christians do not regard this patchwork as ideal, and you should hear it from us rather than find out later. The canonical norm is one bishop for one city, and a council at Constantinople in 1872 condemned organizing the Church along ethnic rather than territorial lines, phyletism, as a heresy. This is an accident of history, not a principle, and work to resolve it continues.

A parish is canonical when its bishop is recognized by the other Orthodox churches — when it belongs to the communion described above rather than to a group that has separated from it. The Assembly of Canonical Orthodox Bishops of the United States of America gathers those bishops; a parish under any of them is canonically Orthodox.

A Note on Oriental Orthodox Churches

You may also find a Coptic, Armenian Apostolic, Ethiopian, Eritrean, Syriac, or Malankara Indian church nearby — ancient churches with their own martyrs and saints, belonging to the Oriental Orthodox communion, distinct from the Eastern Orthodox Church described here. The separation followed the Council of Chalcedon in 451, which confessed Christ as one Person in two natures, without confusion and without division. The Oriental Orthodox churches did not receive that council, and the Orthodox Church has held ever since that the fullness of the faith in Christ requires what Chalcedon confessed. Decades of dialogue produced agreed statements on Christology in 1989 and 1990 reporting a shared faith in different terms — a hopeful convergence, though not one all the Orthodox churches have received, and some have objected. Communion has not been restored, and a member of one does not, as a rule, receive the Mysteries in the other.

How to Choose Which Parish to Visit

The label on the sign should be nearly the last factor in your decision. What forms a Christian is the life of a particular parish and the care of its priest.

  1. Start with the nearest canonical parish. Distance is a spiritual factor: a parish twelve minutes away that you attend weekly will do more for your soul than an ideal one an hour off. Our parish finder is the place to begin.
  2. Check the language of the services. Call or email and ask how much is in English — at a small parish that means writing to the priest, who will not mind.
  3. Look at the service schedule. Besides Sunday morning, most parishes hold an evening service the night before, called Vespers, and some add Matins or weekday feasts. More of these means more of the Church's life on offer, though a small mission with only Sunday Liturgy is doing nothing wrong.
  4. Go, and arrive a few minutes early. Stand or sit near the back, where you can watch. Nobody will quiz you, and you need not cross yourself or venerate icons before you are ready.
  5. Introduce yourself to the priest at coffee hour. Tell him plainly that you are new and know nothing. This is the most important step here, and he has had that conversation many times.
  6. Visit two or three if you can — then commit. Endless comparison becomes its own obstacle. At some point you have to belong somewhere.

Two more things. You will not be turned away for not being Greek, Russian, or Arab; converts are a large and growing share of American parishes. And you will not receive Holy Communion as a visitor: not a rejection, but because communion expresses a unity of faith already entered, as we explain in why non-Orthodox do not commune. When you are ready, our guide to becoming an Orthodox Christian describes what comes next.

Common Questions

Are Greek Orthodox and Russian Orthodox the same religion?

Yes. They are the same Church, holding the same faith and sharing the same Eucharist. The difference is administrative and cultural: which self-governing church a parish belongs to, and what language and music it uses.

Can I receive Communion at a parish from a different jurisdiction?

If you are already Orthodox, yes: an Orthodox Christian in good standing may commune at any canonical Orthodox parish. If you are not yet Orthodox, you do not commune at any of them; the section above explains why that is no rejection. At an unfamiliar parish, speak with the priest first, since what he asks of communicants varies.

Which jurisdiction is the most traditional or the most correct?

None of them is more Orthodox than another. All the canonical jurisdictions hold the same faith, and none has a fuller Liturgy or stricter fasting rule written into it. What varies is how full a particular parish's liturgical life is — and that varies within every jurisdiction rather than between them.

Do I have to be Greek to attend a Greek Orthodox parish?

No. Orthodox parishes in North America include converts of every background; many are majority convert today. If one feels unwelcoming, that is a fact about that parish, not its jurisdiction.

What if the only parish near me serves mostly in another language?

Go anyway, at least once. Many such parishes have more English than their reputation suggests, and service books with facing translations are common. Speak with the priest; he may know an English-language mission nearby.

Further Reading

  • The Orthodox Church: An Introduction to Eastern Christianity — Metropolitan Kallistos Ware (Penguin) — the standard introduction to the Church.
  • Orthodox Christianity, Volume I: The History and Canonical Structure of the Orthodox Church — Metropolitan Hilarion Alfeyev (St. Vladimir's Seminary Press) — the fullest accessible account of autocephaly.
  • Orthodox Christians in America: A Short History — John H. Erickson (Oxford University Press) — how the American jurisdictions came to overlap.
  • Welcome to the Orthodox Church: An Introduction to Eastern Christianity — Frederica Mathewes-Green (Paraclete Press) — a warm walk through parish life.