Eastern Orthodoxy

Eastern Orthodoxy, otherwise known as Eastern Orthodox Christianity or Byzantine Christianity, is one of the three main branches of Chalcedonian Christianity, alongside Catholicism and certain forms of Protestantism. Like the Pentarchy of the first millennium, the mainstream (or "canonical") Eastern Orthodox Church is organised into autocephalous churches independent from each other. There are 17 mainstream autocephalous churches in Eastern Orthodoxy, plus other autocephalous churches unrecognized by the mainstream ones. Autocephalous churches choose their own primate. Autocephalous churches can have jurisdiction (authority) over other churches, some of which have the status of "autonomous" which means they have more autonomy than simple eparchies. Many of these jurisdictions correspond to the territories of one or more modern states; the Patriarchate of Moscow, for example, corresponds to Russia and some of the other post-Soviet states. They can also include metropolises, bishoprics, parishes, monasteries, or outlying metochia corresponding to diasporas that can also be located outside the country where the primate resides (e.g., the case of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople whose canonical territory is located partly in northern Greece and the east); sometimes they overlap (the case of Moldova where the jurisdictions of the patriarchs of Bucharest and of Moscow overlap). The spread of Eastern Orthodoxy began in the eastern area of the Mediterranean Basin within Byzantine Greek culture. Its communities share an understanding, teaching and offices of great similarity, with a strong sense of seeing each other as parts of one church. Adherents of Eastern Orthodox Christianity punctuate their year according to the liturgical calendar of their church. Mainstream Eastern Orthodoxy holds that the Holy Spirit proceeds only from the Father and rejects the Filioque clause ("and the Son") added to the Nicene Creed by the Latin Church, on the grounds that no council was called for the addition.