More on East Meets West
Today I would like to share more with you about the teachings of the Eastern Orthodox Church. The Eastern Orthodox Church traces its beliefs back to the seven great ecumenical councils of the church which were held from 325 AD to about 750 AD. At these councils leaders from the major cities in the Christian world gathered to discuss theology, listen to the Holy Spirit and to write the creeds and doctrinal statements of the church. The western church (later known as the “Catholic Church”) officially split from the eastern church in 1054 AD over disagreements about the role of the Holy Spirit within the Trinity. About 500 years later the Protestant Reformation began in western Europe in which the Lutherans, Calvinists and others split from the Catholic Church. One of the reasons for this split was the belief of the Roman Catholic Church in the primacy of the pope. Unlike the western church, the eastern church never had a pope, but it is a communion of autonomous churches