Eastern Orthodox Church
EASTERN ORTHODOX CHURCH
A descendant of the Byzantine Church, the Eastern Orthodox Church consists of a group of autonomous Christian churches that share doctrine and liturgy. The Eastern Orthodox Church issued from the great schism of 1054, when it formally split from the Roman Catholic Church. Orthodox churches in the Middle East include: the Russian, the Balkan, and the Greek; the churches of Antioch, Alexandria, Jerusalem, and the See of Constantinople (now Istanbul); and the Nestorian and Monophysite churches. The long-established presence of the Eastern Orthodox Church (as well as purchases made from the Georgians in the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries) earned it control over many religious sites in Palestine during the Ottoman Empire and up unto the present.
SEE ALSO Christianity.
