Oriental Orthodoxy

Venerated across Oriental Orthodoxy, which holds the Nicene formula he defended while rejecting the later council of Chalcedon.

The Oriental Orthodox churches are defined by their rejection of the Definition issued here.

The rejection of Chalcedon here placed the Armenian Church among the Oriental Orthodox communions.

This source names Oriental Orthodoxy directly: "Wikipedia's article on Oriental Orthodoxy, a continuously edited tertiary source with no fixed publication year, accessed 2026-08-20."

One of the Oriental Orthodox churches, in communion with the others and not with Constantinople.

The Oriental Orthodox churches rejected the definition in 451 and have never received it. They hold a miaphysite Christology they regard as the faith of Cyril of Alexandria. Modern bilateral dialogue has narrowed the Christological dispute without ending the canonical separation.

This tradition rejects the Chalcedonian Definition's two-natures formula by name, holding instead that Christ's divinity and humanity are united in a single nature; see the Doctrine "Miaphysitism" for its own position.

The Oriental Orthodox churches rejected the definition of 451 and date their separate existence from this council.

This tradition rejects Roman papal primacy and jurisdiction; each Oriental Orthodox church is self-governing under its own patriarch or catholicos.

This tradition rejects the Filioque addition to the Nicene Creed, in common with the wider Eastern Christian tradition.

The Oriental Orthodox churches separated after Chalcedon in 451 and each is governed by its own patriarch or catholicos, with no see holding jurisdiction over the others.

The Oriental Orthodox churches recognise no universal jurisdiction over the episcopate and refuse the definition on the same ground as the Eastern Orthodox.

Refused on the same ground as in the rest of the East, and the Oriental Orthodox churches have their own patriarchs and catholicoi in place of any universal head.

Oriental Orthodoxy refuses the Chalcedonian definition, holding that it divides the one incarnate nature of the Word, and dates its separation from the imperial church to that refusal.

Not received, because the council confirms Chalcedon, and the Oriental Orthodox churches number three councils and no more.

Not received. The council reasons from the two natures Chalcedon defined, so the Oriental Orthodox churches refuse it for the same reason they refuse Chalcedon.

A primacy of honour and not of jurisdiction, in common with the Eastern Orthodox churches.

This tradition does not accept the Western doctrine of Purgatory, though, like Eastern Orthodoxy, it holds its own view of an intermediate state after death.

The thrice-holy is read here as addressed to Christ, and carries the clause who was crucified for us that the Byzantine rite rejects.

Sung with the addition who was crucified for us and addressed to Christ, where the Byzantine churches address the same hymn to the Trinity and refused the addition.

Atonement for sin through Christ is affirmed across Nicene Christianity, including this tradition.

What is rejected is the Augustinian transmission of inherited guilt, not the teaching that humanity begins damaged. This communion reads the fall as bringing mortality and corruption rather than personal guilt, as the Greek East does.

Theosis as the frame, in common with the Eastern Orthodox churches.

The Eastern reading, in common with the Eastern Orthodox churches.

The change as mystery, in common with the Eastern Orthodox churches.

Held as a distinct order in the same sense the Chalcedonian churches hold it, and the succession of bishops is the thread the non-Chalcedonian churches trace back through their own patriarchates.

Held as the second order, with a married parish clergy as in the other Eastern churches.

Held, and the non-Chalcedonian churches keep their own calendars of saints, including many from the centuries after their separation.

An Armenian act rather than a common one, but the position it settled is the position the Oriental Orthodox communion shares.

The third and last council the non-Chalcedonian churches number, and Cyril of Alexandria formula of the one incarnate nature is the position they carried forward from it.

The second of the three councils the non-Chalcedonian churches number, and the ground of their confession of the Holy Spirit.

Received as the first of the three councils the non-Chalcedonian churches number, and the ground of their Christology no less than of the imperial church that later separated from them.

Almsgiving is tied to the long fasting seasons, which are the longest kept anywhere in Christianity.

Anointing of the sick is kept as a mystery of the church, administered to the living faithful and not reserved to the dying.

The end of the age and Christ's return in judgment are confessed in the creed and kept in the liturgical year of each of these churches.

Each of these churches traces its episcopate to an apostolic founder, the Coptic see to Mark and the Armenian to Bartholomew and Thaddeus, and orders are conferred on that understanding.

Baptism is by threefold immersion and is followed at once by chrismation and communion.

Baptism, chrismation and first communion are given together in infancy, as in the Byzantine churches.

Senior leadership office of Oriental Orthodoxy.

The Coptic, Ethiopian, Armenian and Syriac churches likewise ordain married parish priests while drawing their bishops from monasteries, and Egyptian desert monasticism is the ancestor of the whole Christian monastic tradition.

Christian eschatology, the doctrine of last things, is affirmed across Nicene Christianity, including this tradition.

The Coptic and other Oriental churches keep private confession to a priest, with the Coptic practice of a father of confession, a single priest to whom a person confesses habitually, and absolution before receiving the sacrament.

Chrismation is given with baptism in infancy, using myron consecrated by the patriarch, and is not a separate later rite.

The Coptic rite is one of the liturgical families of this communion, with the anaphoras of St Basil, St Gregory and St Cyril.

The covenant given to Abraham and fulfilled in Christ is read here in the patristic manner, as one economy running through both testaments.

The creed opens by confessing one God, maker of heaven and earth and of all things visible and invisible.

The Oriental Orthodox churches are each governed by their own patriarch or catholicos with a synod of bishops, self-standing bodies in communion with one another rather than under a common head.

Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo, within the Oriental Orthodox family

Prayers of exorcism belong to the baptismal rite, and the Coptic and Ethiopian churches maintain a living deliverance ministry outside it.

The Coptic and Ethiopian churches keep the longest fasts in Christendom, well over two hundred days a year of vegan abstinence, with nothing eaten until afternoon on fast days, and it is the laity who keep this and not only the clergy.

The Oriental Orthodox keep some of the longest fasts in Christianity, the Coptic and Ethiopian churches abstaining from all animal products for well over a hundred days of the year.

The funeral offices differ by order and by day, and prayer for the dead is offered at the Liturgy.

The doxology recurs through the daily offices of each of these churches.

Grace is understood as God's own uncreated activity toward creation rather than a created gift, the Eastern reading these churches share.

These churches use anathema and the language of heresy in their own conciliar acts, and their separation from Chalcedon was itself argued in those terms.

A married man may be ordained deacon or presbyter but not bishop, and bishops are drawn from the monasteries.

The Holy Spirit as the third person of the Trinity is affirmed across Nicene Christianity, including this tradition.

The Coptic, Armenian and Syriac icon traditions are distinct schools with their own canons of proportion and colour, and are not branches of the Byzantine one.

The creed confesses the Son as incarnate of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary and made man. This communion receives it in the form settled at Constantinople in 381.

The Oriental Orthodox baptise infants and give chrismation and communion in the same rite, so the child enters full membership at once rather than in stages spread over later years.

Infants are baptised and receive the full rite of initiation. Coptic custom sets the day at forty for a boy and eighty for a girl.

Each of these churches keeps a full daily office. The Coptic form, the Agpeya, has seven hours and a midnight prayer of three watches.

The creed confesses the Son begotten of the Father before all ages, through whom all things were made. Cyril of Alexandria's Word-centred christology is the frame this communion reads him in.

The marriage rite is a crowning, as in the Byzantine churches, with a distinct anointing of the couple in the Coptic form.

The night office is kept, most fully in the monasteries, and in the Coptic use it is the Midnight Prayer with its three watches.

A single united nature in the incarnate Christ, miaphysitism, is this tradition's own Christological position, distinct from the Chalcedonian formula.

Miaphysitism is the doctrine that separated these churches from the rest of Christendom at Chalcedon in 451, confessing one incarnate nature in which divinity and humanity are united without confusion or division.

Tonsure marks entry into the monastic life in the Coptic, Syriac, Armenian and Ethiopian houses alike.

The monastic profession of these churches descends directly from the Egyptian desert and is the oldest continuous monastic observance in Christianity.

The miaphysite definition: one incarnate nature of the Word, united out of two without confusion. The modern christological agreements record that this and the Chalcedonian formula are now widely read as the same faith in different terms.

Closed communion, restricted to the faithful of the communion.

The Eastern position, in common with the Eastern Orthodox churches.