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.

Twenty-seven-book New Testament canon, shared across Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox and Protestant traditions alike, including this tradition.

Sunday is kept as the day of the Resurrection. The Ethiopian and Eritrean churches additionally keep Saturday, which sets them apart from the rest of Christianity.

The creed opens by confessing God the Father almighty.

God is confessed as present everywhere and filling all things, in common with the wider patristic tradition.

God is confessed as knowing all things, in common with the wider patristic tradition these churches share with the Greek and Latin East and West.

Pilgrimage to Jerusalem, to Lalibela and to the desert monasteries of Egypt is a settled devotion across these churches.

Prayer follows a fixed daily cycle in each of these churches, the Coptic Agpeya, the Armenian Zhamagirk and the Ethiopian horologion, rather than a single common book.

The creed confesses the Holy Spirit as the one who spoke by the prophets.

Redemption through Christ's sacrifice is affirmed across Nicene Christianity, including this tradition.

The Oriental Orthodox recite the Creed without the Latin addition, having parted from the wider church before the phrase arose, so their rejection rests on the original text rather than on the later Byzantine dispute.

The bodily resurrection of the dead is affirmed across Nicene Christianity, including this tradition.

Salvation through Christ is affirmed across Nicene Christianity, including this tradition.

Christ as the Son of God is affirmed across Nicene Christianity, including this tradition.

The oldest surviving text of this prayer is a Greek papyrus from Egypt, and it remains in use in the Coptic church that produced it.

Each of these churches has its own family of anaphoras, and the Ethiopian church uses more of them, fourteen in the received collection, than any other in Christendom.

The epiclesis follows the institution narrative, as in the Byzantine rite.

The fraction is an extended rite here, with a fraction prayer that varies by season and by anaphora.

Among the earliest surviving illuminated Christian manuscripts anywhere, produced and continuously held within the Oriental Orthodox communion's own Ethiopian tradition, radiocarbon dated to a period within two to three centuries of the family's founding Ecumenical Councils.

The Oriental Orthodox confess the Trinity as defined at Nicaea and Constantinople, the councils they accept, since their break with the rest of Christendom concerned the person of Christ and not the Trinity.

The creed confesses a kingdom that shall have no end.

The creed confesses that Christ shall come again with glory to judge the living and the dead.

The Lord's Prayer opens every hour of the Agpeya and each of the corresponding offices in the Armenian, Syriac and Ethiopian books.

Each of the Oriental Orthodox churches keeps its own ancient liturgy in its own language, the Coptic of Saint Basil, the Armenian Badarak, the Ethiopian Qeddase, with a substantial fast required beforehand.

Mary is called Ever-Virgin throughout the liturgies of these churches, and the title is not treated as an open question.

The Oriental Orthodox confess the resurrection and celebrate it with the ancient liturgies of Egypt, Armenia, Syria and Ethiopia, whose Easter observance is the summit of their year.

The virgin birth of Christ is affirmed across Nicene Christianity, including this tradition.

The institution narrative stands within the anaphora in each of these rites.

Evil is read as privation rather than substance, the patristic account these churches hold in common with the rest of the ancient tradition.

Theosis, deification through participation in the divine life, is central soteriology shared with the wider Eastern Christian tradition.

The Oriental Orthodox teach deification as the purpose of the incarnation, and their miaphysite Christology sharpens the claim, since the union of natures in Christ is the pattern of what the believer is drawn into.

The Council of Ephesus in 431 is one of the three this communion receives, and Cyril of Alexandria, who carried the title there, is its own patriarch. The word is used without qualification in its liturgies.

Ethiopia's church belongs to the Oriental Orthodox communion.

The distinction between God's unknowable essence and his presence to creation is carried here as it is in the Greek East, with the same apophatic caution.

The doctrine of the Trinity, one God in three persons, is affirmed across Nicene Christianity, including this tradition; the Oriental Orthodox churches accept the first three Ecumenical Councils, at which Trinitarian doctrine was defined.

The evening office is kept daily, and in the Coptic use the Raising of Incense at Vespers precedes the Liturgy of the following morning.

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.