Orthodox and Catholics share far more than most people in Southeast Texas realize. We confess the same Triune God. We believe Jesus Christ is fully God and fully man. We baptize in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. We celebrate the Eucharist as the real Body and Blood of Christ, not a symbol. We venerate the saints and honor the Theotokos. We have bishops in apostolic succession stretching back to the Apostles themselves.
For the first thousand years, we were one Church.
That matters. When Orthodox and Catholics read the writings of St. John Chrysostom or St. Augustine or St. Athanasius, we’re reading our shared fathers. The seven Ecumenical Councils that defined Christian doctrine, Nicaea, Constantinople, Ephesus, Chalcedon, and the rest, belong to both of us. The Nicene Creed we recite every Sunday is the same Creed (with one significant exception we’ll get to). This isn’t a vague spiritual kinship. It’s concrete historical reality.
Both traditions center our worship on the Eucharist. Catholics call it the Mass. We call it the Divine Liturgy. But in both cases, we believe something real happens at the altar. Christ becomes present. We receive him. This isn’t a memorial meal or a symbolic gesture, it’s the actual Body and Blood of our Lord. When your Catholic grandmother insists the Eucharist is really Jesus, she’s right. So are we.
We share the same sacraments, though we call them mysteries. Baptism, Chrismation (what Catholics call Confirmation), Eucharist, Confession, Marriage, Holy Orders, Anointing of the Sick. The number’s the same. The theology’s similar. A Catholic visiting an Orthodox Liturgy will recognize what’s happening, even if the language and music sound different.
We both believe in apostolic succession. Our bishops can trace their ordinations back through centuries of laying-on-of-hands to the Apostles. This isn’t just paperwork. It’s how the Church maintains continuity with what Christ established. It’s why both Orthodox and Catholics take bishops seriously in a way that’d seem strange to your Baptist coworker who thinks church structure doesn’t matter.
We venerate Mary as Theotokos, the God-bearer, Mother of God. We ask the saints to pray for us, just as we’d ask a living friend to pray. We light candles. We have fasting disciplines. We practice confession. We believe the Church is the Body of Christ, not just a voluntary association of believers. If you’re coming from a Protestant background, these similarities might surprise you. Catholics and Orthodox have more in common with each other than either has with evangelicalism.
So why aren’t we in communion?
The split’s complicated. The usual date given is 1054, but that’s oversimplified. The real separation took centuries. Cultural differences between Greek East and Latin West. Theological disputes. Political conflicts. Crusaders sacking Constantinople in 1204 didn’t help. But the core issues are theological, and they’re not small.
The biggest is papal authority. Catholics believe the Pope has immediate universal jurisdiction over all Christians and can teach infallibly under certain conditions. We don’t. We see the Bishop of Rome as first among equals, deserving honor, but not as having the kind of authority Rome claims. That’s not a minor administrative disagreement. It’s a fundamentally different understanding of how the Church works.
There’s also the filioque, the phrase “and the Son” added to the Creed in the West. Catholics say the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son. We say the Spirit proceeds from the Father alone (though we’d add nuances about the Son’s role). This affects how we understand the Trinity. It matters.
Catholics have developed doctrines we don’t share. The Immaculate Conception of Mary. Purgatory as a distinct place with temporal punishments. Indulgences. These aren’t just different emphases. They’re teachings we don’t accept.
But here’s what I want you to hear: these differences don’t erase the commonalities. When I say we’re not in communion with Catholics, I’m not saying they’re not Christians or that their sacraments are invalid. I’m saying we have real theological disagreements that prevent us from sharing the Eucharist together. That’s a serious thing. The Eucharist is the ultimate sign of unity, and we can’t pretend we’re united when we’re not.
Many of you reading this have Catholic family. Your grandmother’s probably worried about you leaving “the Church.” Be patient with her. Explain what you’ve found in Orthodoxy, but don’t trash-talk Catholicism. We share too much for that. The early Church fathers she’s read about? They’re ours too. The Eucharist she receives with devotion? We believe it’s the real presence just as she does.
If you’re still inquiring and trying to decide between Orthodoxy and Catholicism, come to Liturgy. Read the fathers. Talk with a catechist. The differences matter, but they’re best understood from the inside, not from a checklist. Metropolitan Kallistos Ware’s book The Orthodox Church has a good chapter on this if you want to dig deeper.
We pray for the day when the divisions will be healed. But that healing has to be theological, not just organizational. It requires both sides to be honest about where we agree and where we don’t. Until then, we live as separated brothers who share the same Father.
