What is the difference between Eastern Orthodox, Roman Catholic, and Protestant beliefs?

Answer 1

"What separates us as believers in Christ is much less than what unites us." (Pope John XXIII)

Almost all important doctrine is completely agreed upon between Catholic Christians and other Christians.

Here is the joint declaration of justification by Catholics (1999), Lutherans (1999), and Methodists (2006):

By grace alone, in faith in Christ's saving work and not because of any merit on our part, we are accepted by God and receive the Holy Spirit, who renews our hearts while equipping us and calling us to good works.

http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/pontifical_councils/chrstuni/documents/rc_pc_chrstuni_doc_31101999_cath-luth-joint-declaration_en.html

There are many minor doctrine issues and some major cultural traditional differences which, I believe, do not matter that much.

A Catholic worships and follows Christ in the tradition of Catholicism which, among other things, recognizes that Christ made Peter the leader of His new Church and Pope Benedict XVI is Peter's direct successor.

For more information, see the Catechism of the Catholic Church: http://www.usccb.org/catechism/text/index.htm

With love in Christ.

Answer 2

Orthodox Christians follow the teaching of the apostles. We hold tight to the Holy Tradition . The biggest difference between the Protestants and the Orthodox is Christ is the Cornerstone and the apostles and the prophets are the foundation of the Orthodox Church. The Protestant Church Christ is the Cornerstone and the Holy Scriptures are the foundation. The Holy Scriptures are part of our foundation because they are part of the apostles teaching.

Answer 3

If you can't figure out Catholics are control freaks. They were set up by people who wanted to control the world like the Roman empire. Why do you think they are called Roman Catholics and not just Catholics. They want governments to do what they want. Look and central and south American countries.
Eastern Orthodox have right doctrine but support traditions in practice that continue to lead people into trusting icons and images and Mary rather then the truth of what they believe.
Protestants are such a mix you really can't answer that without dividing them between good and bad right and wrong.

If you want the truth of anything you need to go to the original ideals and practices. Go to the early church.
See what they believed and how they practiced it. Jesus said you are my disciples if you obey what I taught you...
Not if you do a good job of adding to it....

Answer 4

This can't be answered in a single post. However, the following web site explains much of the Orthodox viewpoint:

http://www.orthodoxinfo.com/inquirers/

And, contrary to what a lot of people with no direct experience with Orthodoxy might claim, there are significant and deep differences in belief between the Orthodox and those who follow the Pope of Rome.

Answer 5

This is really quite intelligent:
Lets start with Roman Catholic.
The early church was quite diverse and fluid in its structure and theology. It was Jewish in style. They worshiped on the Sabbath which is Saturday today and structurally in government of the group very Jewish.
As the Roman Empire was collapsing the Roman Church was taken over by a group of priests from the Ancient secret Babylonian religion that was set up in exile in Asia. With the help of Constantine they took over the Roman church and then started to get others to obey them. It is estimated that they killed 100 church leaders who would not submit.
Augustine set the stage for their control in his book "the city of God". In this he suggested that the Roman Catholic church is the true church and all others were false.
His fight with Pelagian over free will etc. lead to divisions. The eastern church 17 times affirmed that Pelagian had a more true view of the doctrine of mans free will and accountability.
Augustine said everything was predetermined by God.
The eastern church in its theological concepts is more early church and Biblical. From the outside they practice much like the Catholics of Rome.
When you say protestants there are two groups.
The true believers of the Bible in the reformation period were those called Anabaptist. Re-baptizers is what the term means.
It was not they themselves at that time who used this term . Today the largest group is the Mennonites.
The other reformers were Martin Luther, a former Augustinian monk and John Calvin, a murderous egotistical mad man, who killed people who disagreed with him. He plagiarized Augustine's theology and therefor changed very little in the false concepts already in the church.
Most people who call themselves protestants, which is a word which means protester's against Rome, are followers of Calvin in some theological form. Evangelicals of today come from this basic background and consider him a hero of the faith. It is like saying Osama Benladin is had good idea's.
The destruction to the Biblical character of God by this group is still being found today.
Rick Warren in his "Purpose Driven Life" book, in chapter two makes God into the devil who causes all evil and all good taking away both freedom and responsibility.
People who don't read the Bible are gullible to these type of blind misguided leaders of the blind.
Does this help you...
Let me add a thanks to the orthodox Christians whose church saved the lives of our ancestors as they fled the persecution by those who hated them in Europe. There is more in common with Mennonites and we appreciate you.

Answer 6

There are lots of differences - fewer between Eastern and Roman (except for the rituals common to each, one big difference is that Eastern church services are characterized by what is often called "bells and smells") than between either of those and Protestant groups. But there may be even bigger differences between different Protestant groups. If you are serious about learning about these things, contact me and I will try to help you.

Answer 7

This is too large of a question to fully answer here. I would suggest you start researching yourself to learn what each church believes and where they tend to disagree.


http://foru.ms/f145-the-ancient-way-eastern-orthodox.html
http://www.protomartyr.org/believe.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East-West_Schism

Answer 8

Quite a lot but you could try the headgear for a start and also the facial fungus.

Answer 9

Catholicism is a Babylonian pagan cult that has a false gospel of works that leads to eternal hell.

Anyone can be saved by believing that Jesus, who is God, died for our sins on the cross and rose again.

Joining a group will not save you, no matter what they call themselves.

Answer 10

That's an awful lot to cover. Essentially, Orthodox Christians believe in the collegiality of their patriarchs, Catholics accept the primacy of the pope, and Protestants believe only in the supremacy of Christ.

All of them have substantially the same theological beliefs, but there are some significant differences. The Orthodox Church has a different understanding of the relationships in the Divine Trinity from the Western Church. Catholics and Orthodox believe in the effective intercession of the saints and the sacraments while Protestants do not. So each has much in common with one or more of the others. But of course it is the differences that divide.

But there are some profound cultural differences as well. Orthodox Christianity follows an "oriental" model which stresses the unfathomability of God. One does not decipher a mystery so much as immerse oneself in it. Experience is more important than understanding. And Orthodox liturgies are very elaborate, full of incense and icons, chanting and postures, all designed to enhance the sensory experience of the ritual.

The Western Church follows the Roman model of reason and codification. It seeks to understand and explain all aspects of divinity and salvation. The Medieval Scholastics were a natural outgrowth of this mindset, applying the tools of Aristotelian logic to the faith in order to remove any ambiguities about what is believed.

These spiritual approaches are not mutually exclusive, of course. An Orthodox theologian will argue a theological point as finely as a Jesuit, and Catholicism is well-known for cultivating mystics. In fact, exclusive emphasis on an intellectual approach tends to eventually generate a pietistic reaction, while a comprehensive "heart" approach to sprituality can leave some "heads" starving for rationality.

The very early Church was community-based. Christians kept to themselves because their view of life was radically
unconventional. They came to be viewed with suspicion by outsiders, despite their good intentions. Isolation was overcome by communication with other Christian communities through letters and missionary visits. In time, the communes grew to become significant parts of the cities and their leaders developed reputations in other parts of the world. Several distinct "Churches" developed in major cities such as Rome, Constantinople, Antioch, Alexandria, etc. and each was represented by its bishop or patriarch. These would share their insights and understandings between churches, but there were also disagreements.

When a new social issue arose, one not encountered by Jesus or his apostles, the community had to make decisions about how to handle it. This developed into the Tradition of the Church, but it also determined how authority was structured. Originally it was a matter of the bishop and the elders of the community making an informed decision, but as churches grew and delegation of power became necessary, a hierarchy began to develop. Bishops appointed "priests" to be their local representatives in the outlying areas of their territory, adminstratively distancing themselves from the people. When larger theological disputes arose, the bishops would meet in council to resolve it, but otherwise each bishop was essentially autonomous.

Trouble arose after the breakup of the Roman Empire. The Greek-speaking churches and the Latin-speaking churches began to drift apart. There was concern about Christian unity. Then the Western Empire collapsed and the church was required to fill in the administrative vacuum. Communities in the far reaches of the former empire lost touch with each other. With his seat in the former imperial capital, the bishop of Rome felt the need to establish a single authority to insure a common understanding of faith and practice. He became the "papa", the pope, and all Western Churches were called to be subordinate to his authority.

This did not play at all well in the East. Their empire was doing just fine and they didn't see the need for a doctrinal or administrative protector. Friction slowly grew between East and West, politically as much as doctrinally, until the two sides broke irrevocably apart in 1054, each pursuing its own version of church.

The Western hierachical model continued undisturbed for another 500 years. In addition to standardizing doctrine and regulating practice, the Church of Rome interpreted the meaning of scripture for the people, who no longer understood Latin and couldn't read anyway. There were confusing passages in the Bible that needed clarification, so the Church did what it could to make sure everyone was doctrinally unified.

With the rise of intellectualism, educated people began to resent what they saw as a heavy hand on the faith. A tenuous contact with the East was formed and the Greek Bible was rediscovered. People who could read wanted to be able to read scripture for themselves. There were some tentative attempts to "free" the Bible and the faith from Roman control, notable John Wycliffe in the 14th Century and John Hus in the 15th. But Rome had a considerable investment in its authority structure and soon branded any dissidents as heretics, leading to excommunication, exile, and/or execution.

The Renaissance had an effect on the Church as well. Science and Art were on the move and the Church needed to keep abreast of such things to head off potential trouble. Besides, those Italian Renaissance painters and sculptors did some really cool illustration of Biblical and Christian history. But all this cost money. The normal tithes and taxes didn't cover the new buildings and remodelings. So some authorities began to rationalize the dogma.

The reasoning was, if prayer to God on behalf of a departed soul being cleansed in purgatory (a lot of doctrinal assumptions already), it didn't matter who did the praying, a loved one, a stranger, a saint or a priest. One might induce others to help with the praying, and there was nothing wrong with showing gratitude for the help. So to simplify matters, one might directly pay the Church to pray on behalf of the suffering soul. They'd do a great job, the soul would enter heaven and some fine buildings would be put up in Rome.

It was perfectly logical, but some people saw it as something else: salvation to the highest bidder. They were outraged by this blatant commercial exploitation of people's faith and concern for their loved ones. And some took action.

Protestantism began as an attempt to reform the abuses that had crept into the Church. Obviously there could be only one true Church, so the reformers had to be careful to maintain the higher moral ground. When Martin Luther posted his grievances, he expected honest soul-searching from Rome. He was disappointed. Ignored at best, demonized at worst, Luther was clearly headed down the path of Wycliffe and Hus. How could he claim the authority to fix a Church government that didn't want to be fixed?

The solution was to delegitimize their authority. But they claimed an unbroken succession of ordinations back to the beginning. What could trump that? Luther found the solution in two new doctrines: "sola fide" and "sola scriptura". Luther had been concerned with his own sinfulness until he found a verse in Romans (ironically?) that stated Abraham had been saved by his faith in God, not anything he had done. Luther extrapolated from this and declared that it was impossible to earn one's way into heaven, only faith in Christ's power to save mattered. This effectively cancelled the intercessory power of prayer, the sacraments, the mass, and just about anything the Church had to offer. It was all between the individual and God.

The other doctrine used another Bible verse to distinguish between the "word of God" and "the traditions of men". Luther chose to interpret the "word" as the Bible. Every answer, every decision had to be Biblically based or it was illegitimate. This cancelled out all the historical adaptations the Church had made to survive in the world. The Bible would replace the Church as the authority for Christian living. A few Biblical books were problematic, but Luther managed to exclude most of them on technical grounds and explain away the rest.

The next challenge was selling the idea. But Luther found a lot of resentful support among intellectuals, merchants, politicians and others anxious to overthrow the shackles of Church control over every aspect of their lives. He was actually able to establish Christian communities independent of what came to be known as the Catholic Church. Their worship was stark, largely stripped of emblems, sacraments and prelates, but they found a way to live this simpler and more sincere faith. He also started a flood of imitators, each anxious to establish and promote their own vision of Christianity. Calvinists, Zwingliites, Anabaptists and more sprang up, developing their own, Biblically inspired doctrines and practices.

Since then, Protestantism continues to fracture into ever more denominations, split over even the tiniest differences in Biblical interpretation. The Catholics are more or less unified, but handle change and dissent with difficulty. And the Orthodox Church continues to maintain that it never "left" anything.