Orthodox Christianity: start here

This is the path for someone who wants to understand what the Orthodox Church believes and how it lives, in order rather than in pieces. It runs from the first question — why any of this is learned inside a community — through the Creed, Christ, the Holy Spirit, the Church, worship, the Mysteries, salvation, the saints, icons, the disciplines of prayer and fasting, and the hope of resurrection.

It ends with a lesson about visiting a parish, because that is what the rest of it is for.

Lessons

Progress is stored on this device only.

1. Encountering Christ in the Church Why Orthodoxy begins with a person and a community rather than with a system of ideas. 7 min — Not yet read
2. Scripture within Holy Tradition Not two sources of information, but one life in which the Scriptures are read. 9 min — Not yet read
3. The Creed and the Holy Trinity What the Church confesses about God, where the words came from, and why they were fought over. 10 min — Not yet read
4. Jesus Christ: incarnation, death and resurrection One person in two natures, and why four adverbs at Chalcedon still matter. 10 min — Not yet read
5. The Holy Spirit and Pentecost How the Church came to confess the Spirit as God, and why Basil argued from the way the Church prays. 8 min — Not yet read
6. The Church, apostolic succession and councils What holds the Church together, and how it settles what it cannot settle locally. 9 min — Not yet read
7. Worship and the Divine Liturgy The shape of Christian worship in the second century, and the shape of it now. 8 min — Not yet read
8. Baptism, chrismation and entry into the Church How a person becomes an Orthodox Christian, and what the fourth-century sources show us about it. 8 min — Not yet read
9. The Eucharist and the other Mysteries What the Church calls the Mysteries, why the number seven is a late convention, and what the earliest witnesses say. 7 min — Not yet read
10. Salvation, grace, freedom and theosis Healing rather than settlement, and what it means to become by grace what God is by nature. 8 min — Not yet read
11. The Theotokos, the saints and intercession Why Orthodox Christians ask the saints to pray, and what the distinction between honour and worship actually is. 7 min — Not yet read
12. Holy icons and the Seventh Council The image, the incarnation, and a controversy that lasted more than a century. 8 min — Not yet read
13. Prayer, fasting, almsgiving and repentance The three disciplines Christ names together, understood as therapy rather than achievement. 8 min — Not yet read
14. Repentance and confession From the ancient penitential stations to the sacrament as it is practised now. 7 min — Not yet read
15. Death, judgement and the age to come The resurrection of the body, prayer for the dead, and the reticence the tradition keeps. 7 min — Not yet read
16. Visiting a parish and speaking with a priest The practical last step, and the one this archive exists to serve. 6 min — Not yet read

If you have worked through this path, the next useful thing is not more reading. It is a Sunday morning and a conversation with a priest.