What is the relationship between the name given in the Creed (“One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church”) and the common names “Eastern Orthodox Church,” “Greek Orthodox Church,” “Russian Orthodox Church,” etc.?
The name “Orthodox Church” is commonly used for the worldwide communion of the catholic Churches which hold the Orthodox faith and are in communion with one another. This newer expression does not appear in the decrees and canons of the Ecumenical Councils but is used in modern times to avoid confusion with the (Roman) Catholic Church.
On solemn and formal occasions, however, Orthodox Christians refer to their Church as “Catholic,” or “One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic.” As St Raphael of Brooklyn explains: “The official name of our Church is ‘The Holy Orthodox Catholic Apostolic Church.’ The Church of the East has never from the first been known by any other name than Catholic, nor has she set aside this title in any official document” (Pastoral Letter dated March 1908, addressed to clergy and laity under his care).
The adjective “Orthodox” is thus most fittingly applied to the faith, while “catholic” is most fittingly and traditionally applied to the Church. So St Cyril of Jerusalem admonishes the newly baptized:
If ever you are visiting in cities, do not inquire simply where the house of the Lord is (for the sects of the impious attempt to call their dens ‘houses of the Lord’), nor merely where the church is, but where is the catholic church: for this is the name peculiar to this holy Church, the mother of us all, the Bride of our Lord Jesus Christ. (St Cyril of Jerusalem, Catechetical Lectures, 18.26)
The name “Eastern Orthodox Church” is sometimes used to distinguish the family of Churches which accept the Council of Chalcedon (451) from those which do not, the “Oriental Orthodox” or non-Chalcedonian Churches. Yet, the adjective “Eastern” may also remind us of the original Paradise, planted in the East, which we seek, as St Basil explains: “we all look to the East at our prayers, but few of us know that we are seeking our own old country, Paradise, which God planted in Eden, in the East” (St Basil the Great, On the Holy Spirit, 27 [66]; see Q017, Q024).
And in a region still called “the East,” in the land of Judaea, our Lord Jesus Christ, having finished the work of our salvation, laid the foundation of his Church: from the East she spread over the whole world. (St Raphael of Brooklyn)
The East (the “Orient”) also recalls the light of the risen Christ which illumines all, our Savior as the life-giving Sun and Bridegroom coming forth from his chamber (Psa 19:4–6; Mal 4:2, “the Sun of Righteousness”; cf. the Troparion of the Nativity; see Q055, Q542), which is why Orthodox temples and prayer face the East.
The expression “Greek Orthodox Church” is sometimes used as a synonym for “Orthodox Church,” on account of the determining influence of the Greek language on early Christianity: the entire New Testament was written in koine Greek, and the most influential early teachers of the Church were Greek-speaking. Thus, the Patriarchate of Antioch, Arabic rather than Greek in language and people, is still formally styled “Greek Orthodox.” “Greek Orthodox Church” can also mean the Church of Greece (properly, the Archdiocese of Athens and All Greece), or any parish with historical links to the Greek people; and the plural “Greek Orthodox Churches” is sometimes used of all the Greek-speaking Churches together (Greece, Crete, Cyprus, Jerusalem, Alexandria, Constantinople).
“Russian Orthodox Church” is the common expression for what is properly the Patriarchate of Moscow and All Russia; it may also be applied to parishes outside Russia having a historical or canonical connection with that patriarchate, as, for instance, in Alaska.
