The Eastern Orthodox Church is the Church founded by Jesus Christ in 33 AD

Thank you, GenesisCreation for taking up the challenge. I look forward to a healthy debate! The subject may be impossible, but we shouldn't let that stop us from seeing where it takes us.I would like to begin my argument with a preface that my position that the Orthodox Church is the 'true Christian Church' does not reflect in any way on either my or my Church's opinions on the salvation of people's souls. Our Church is not a "salvation club" - there are people within it who will not be saved, and people outside of it who will. The Church is a living entity which we serve, and which acts in the world in ways we do not understand. This is not just my personal opinion, but the feelings of the vast majority of priests and bishops throughout the history of the Church. So please do not mistake my argumentation on the nature of the true Church for a presumed judgment on the status of any individual's salvation. As Bishop Kallistos Ware says, "While there is no division between a "visible" and an "invisible Church", yet there may be members of the Church who are not visibly such, but whose membership is known to God alone. If anyone is saved, he must in some sense be a member of the Church; in what sense, we cannot always say." [a] Or, more succinctly, "We can say where the Church is; we cannot say where she is not." It is from this vantage point I approach the subject, so please do not mistake my enthusiasm for an actual 'one and true' Church as a judgment on anyone or any group outside of it.Before I get to my main argument, I would like to provide the definition of ecclesiology I will be using: "The Church is the Body of Christ, a theanthropic (divine-human) communion of Jesus Christ with his people. The sole head of the Church is Christ. The Church is an object of faith, that is, Orthodox Christians believe in the Church. The traditional belief in the Church is attested to in the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed as the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church. By this phrase is meant that the Church is undivided and not many (one), sanctified and set apart for the work of God (holy), whole and characterized by fullness and universality (catholic), and has as its essence the going out into all the world to preach the Gospel and baptize the nations (apostolic)." [1] Now, to the main course. There are many ways I could approach this subject, but I have chosen to present in deliberately simple terms initially to see where the objections lie, which will hopefully let us get into some more depth in future rounds. I will present a summarized timeline for the Church, and let my opponent tell me where it is along this timeline where the Church 'fell away', or however he/she wishes to phrase it.1. The Birth of the Church. The Church is born on the first Whit Sunday during the feast of Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit descended upon the apostles, as described in Acts 2:2-4 [2] On the same day, three thousand men and women were baptized through the preaching of St. Peter, and the Christian community in Jerusalem was formed. [3] After the martyrdom of St. Stephen [4], the community in Jerusalem is scattered through persecution and begins its never-ending goal of "making all nations My disciples."2. Christianity spreads very quickly throughout and beyond the Roman Empire. The internal structure and tasks of the Church are formed and made clear in the earliest known documents written by these first and second generation Christians, with reference to the Eucharist (ie, Communion) in the Didache [5], and reference to bishops, priests and deacons in the letters of St. Ignatius [6]. During this same time period, certain cities became points of focus for early Christians, including Antioch, Alexandria, and Rome. [7] Christians tended to look to the bishops and priests of these cities for guidance, although they had no formal authority outside of their sees.3. Fast forward about 200 hundred years to the infamous conversion of Constantine and legalization of Christianity in the Roman Empire in 313 AD with the Edict of Milan. The age of martyrdom ends as Christianity becomes the religion of the Empire. The First Council of Nicaea is called by Constantine whereby a gathering of bishops from all over the Christian world come together to spell out more explicitly certain of their creeds and beliefs. This council is modeled after the gathering in Jerusalem mentioned in Acts 15, and all bishops in attendance are at an equal footing, as spelled out in Canon 6 of the Council. [8] During the next 400+ years, six more Ecumenical Councils meet to decide points of Church doctrine, these, known as the First Seven Ecumenical Councils, are universally accepted by Orthodox, Catholics, and Anglicans. (I suspect your argument will come from here somewhere if your objection isn't more related to the definition of Church I have given, and I am uncertain of particulars of Reformed opinion on the Councils, so I will keep the rest of the timeline short, but I would be glad to shift focus in the following rounds based on your reply)4. Gradually during the time of these councils and later, a divide grew between Christianity in the east and the west. While in the east, the Church worked with and under the Roman (Byzantine) Empire in a 'synergia' - where the Church would cede to the Empire the matters of the world, while retaining control over its theology (thus, a 'synergia' of human and divine) - the Church in the west instead became more and more involved in taking the reigns of the politics of the time. [9] This split became 'official' in 1054, when Rome attempted to gain authority in the Church just as it was doing in the realm of politics, by issuing an order to the Ecumenical Patriarch (ie, Bishop - "Ecumenical Patriarch" is an honorary title) of Constantinople demanding he accept Rome as the head of all Churches (citing the forged "Donation of Constantine"). He refused, and they ex-communicated each other. [10] Now, going back to the 6th century, there was a concept called the Pentarchy, which is really just a way of saying that there were five major sees in the Christian world geographically speaking. These five sees were Rome, Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem. It was often the case that other Bishops would first look to these sees for guidance in matters outside of Ecumenical Councils. When news of the mutual ex-communication of the papal legate and the Ecumenical Patriarch reached the rest of the sees of the Pentarchy, they all sided with Constantinople, which is what turned the ex-communication of one bishop into a real schism.I don't wish to simply gloss over the next, oh, 1000+ years (!), but there are a couple good reasons for not going into much detail there in this round. First, Orthodox theology has not changed in that time, believe it or not. There has only been one Ecumenical Council in the Orthodox Church since the 7th in 787 AD which elucidated a theological position, the Fifth Council of Constantinople, which addressed Hesychasm, held between 1341 and 1351. [11] Secondly, I am running out of space!I thank you for your time and look forward to going into more detail on specific issues in subsequent rounds.Sources[a] http://www.beliefnet.com...[1] http://orthodoxwiki.org...;[2] http://www.biblegateway.com...[3] http://www.biblegateway.com...;[4] http://www.biblegateway.com...;[5] http://en.wikipedia.org...;[6] http://www.newadvent.org...;[7] http://en.wikipedia.org...;[8] http://www.newadvent.org...[9] http://en.wikipedia.org...;[10] http://en.wikipedia.org...;[11] http://en.wikipedia.org...;