page_title: Christian Church
section_title: Orthodox tradition
hierarchical_section_title: Christian Church / Orthodox tradition
caption_attribution_description: St. Mark's Cathedral in Alexandria
context_page_description: Christian Church is a Protestant ecclesiological term referring to the church invisible comprising all Christians, used since the Protestant Reformation in the 16th century. In this understanding, "Christian Church" does not refer to a particular Christian denomination but to the "body" or "group" of believers, both defined in various ways. A prominent example of this is the branch theory maintained by some Anglicans. This is in contrast to the one true church applied to a specific concrete Christian institution, a majority Christian ecclesiological position maintained by the Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox Church, the Oriental Orthodox churches, Assyrian Church of the East and the Ancient Church of the East.
  Most English translations of the New Testament generally use the word "church" as a translation of the Ancient Greek: ἐκκλησία, romanized: ecclesia, found in the original Greek texts, which generally meant an "assembly" or "congregation".
context_section_description: The term orthodox is generally used to distinguish the faith or beliefs of the "true Church" from other doctrines which disagree, traditionally referred to as heresy.
  The Eastern Orthodox Church and Oriental Orthodox Churches each claim to be the original Christian Church. The Eastern Orthodox Church bases its claim primarily on its assertion that it holds to traditions and beliefs of the original Christian Church. It also states that four out of the five sees of the Pentarchy (excluding Rome) are still a part of it. The Oriental Orthodox churches' claims are similar to those of the Eastern Orthodox Church. They never adopted the theory of the Nature of God, which was formulated later than the break that followed the Council of Chalcedon.
  This concept of "orthodoxy" began to take on particular significance during the reign of the Roman Emperor Constantine I, the first to actively promote Christianity. Constantine convened the first Ecumenical Council, the Council of Nicea, which attempted to provide the first universal creed of the Christian faith.
  The major issue of this and other councils during the 4th century was the Christological debate between Arianism and Trinitarianism. Trinitarianism is the official doctrine of the Catholic Church and is strongly associated with the term "orthodoxy", although some modern non-trinitarian churches dispute this usage.
caption: St. Mark's Coptic Orthodox Cathedral in Alexandria, Egypt.
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