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I would like to know more about the Greek Orthodox faith please and how it differs from the Church of England (Protestant) . My father was Greek Orthodox but no Orthodox churches in North Wales but he was able to receive Holy Communion. Efharisto.
Answer to Question 70.
There are many differences between the Orthodox Church and the Church of England and in general all Protestants. To mention them all would take me all day so I’ll just stick to the basics. When the Church of England broke away from the Roman Catholic Church they broke away from the accepted Christian Bible. The Orthodox Church uses the Septuagint version of the Old Testament, which not only has more books than the Hebrew version, but also varies in certain passages from the books they both share. The Septuagint version is a translation made from the Hebrew into Greek and was translated by 72 Jews in Alexandria, Egypt, around 285 B.C. The 72 were made up by taking 6 scholars (scribes) from each of the 12 tribes of Israel. It became the most common used translation amongst the Jews outside of Palestine and the many references to the Old Testament prophecies found in the New Testament are quoted from the Septuagint version, showing that Christ and the Apostles considered it as the most authoritative and authentic. The Roman Catholic Church uses the Vulgate version which is similar to the Septuagint. The Church of England Commissioned a new Bible thinking that they were going but to the original roots and translated the Old Testament from what we call the Masoretic text which was written by Jews after 70AD and which has less books than the Septuagint and differs greatly from in passages concerning the messianic prophecies (the prophecies concerning the Messiah). A careful study of the Psalms will reveal how crucially different the Septuagint text is in these messianic portions. In other things we can say that the Church of England has many things in common with the Orthodox Church. They adopted the married clergy, reception of Holy Communion by the laity in both kinds – both the consecrated bread and the wine, and the importance of salvation through faith in Christ. But in recent years with the acceptance of women into the Anglican clergy and gay bishops, the church of England is going through a period of decadence which I feel will make any attempts of reconciliation impossible. |
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