What is the opinion of Nijia christian of Eastern Orthodox Christianity.  While protestants condemn catholicism the truth is that they are actually derivative of catholicism, Catholics would even go as far as calling them deviants.  Yet there is another school of Christianity that has equal claims to Apostolic tradition as the Catholics.  I wonder what protestants therefore think of the Eastern orthodox guys.  

Distinctive Orthodox Beliefs

As in all of Christianity, doctrine is important in Eastern Orthodoxy. Orthodox Christians attach great importance to the Bible, the conclusions of the Seven Ecumenical Councils, and right ("orthodox" belief. However, the Eastern Churches approach religious truth differently than the Western Churches. For Orthodox Christians, truth must be experienced personally. There is less focus on the exact definition of religious truth and more on the practical and personal experience of truth in the life of the individual and the church. Precise theological definition, when it occurs, is for the purpose of excluding error.

This emphasis on personal experience of truth flows into Orthodox theology, which has a rich heritage. Especially in the first millenium of Christian history, the Eastern Church produced significant theological and philosophical thought.

In the Western churches, both Catholic and Protestant, sin, grace, and salvation are seen primarily in legal terms. God gave humans freedom, they misused it and broke God's commandments, and now deserve punishment. God's grace results in forgiveness of the transgression and freedom from bondage and punishment.

The Eastern churches see the matter in a different way. For Orthodox theologians, humans were created in the image of God and made to participate fully in the divine life. The full communion with God that Adam and Eve enjoyed meant complete freedom and true humanity, for humans are most human when they are completely united with God.

The result of sin, then, was a blurring of the image of God and a barrier between God and man. The situation in which mankind has been ever since is an unnatural, less human state, which ends in the most unnatural aspect: death. Salvation, then, is a process not of justification or legal pardon, but of reestablishing man's communion with God. This process of repairing the unity of human and divine is sometimes called "deification." This term does not mean that humans become gods but that humans join fully with God's divine life.

The Eastern Orthodox view of the Trinity also differs somewhat from that of the Christian West. In its Christology, Orthodoxy tends to emphasize the divine, preexistent nature of Christ, whereas the West focuses more on his human nature. However, both East and West affirm Christ's full humanity and full divinity as defined by the ecumenical councils. In fact, Christ's humanity is also central to the Orthodox faith, in the doctrine that the divine became human so that humanity might be raised up to the divine life.

The process of being reunited to God, made possible by Christ, is accomplished by the Holy Spirit. The Spirit plays a central role in Orthodox worship: the liturgy usually begins with a prayer to the Spirit and invocations made prior to sacraments are addressed to the Spirit.

It is in the view of the Holy Spirit that Orthodox theology differs from Western theology, and although the difference might now seem rather techinical and abstract, it was a major contributor to the parting of East from West in the 11th century. This dispute is known as the Filioque Controversy, as it centers on the Latin word filioque ("and from the Son", which was added to the Nicene Creed in Spain in the 6th century. The original creed proclaimed only that the Holy Spirit "proceeds from the Father."

The purpose of the addition was to reaffirm the divinity of the Son, but Eastern theologians objected both to the unilateral editing of a creed produced by an ecumenical council and to the edit itself. For Eastern Christians, both the Spirit and the Son have their origin in the Father.

This was taken from here:http://www.religionfacts.com/christianity/denominations/orthodoxy.htm

Christians feud over Church of Holy Sepulcher
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Digg Facebook Newsvine del.icio.us Reddit StumbleUpon Technorati Yahoo! Bookmarks Print By MATTI FRIEDMAN, Associated Press Writer Matti Friedman, Associated Press Writer – Sat Oct 25, 5:28 pm ET AP –


Tourist visit the Deir El Sultan monastery in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, believed by many to be … JERUSALEM – Two rival monks are posted at all times in a rooftop courtyard at the site of Jesus' crucifixion: a bearded Copt in a black robe and an Ethiopian sunning himself on a wooden chair, studiously ignoring each other as they fight over the same sliver of sacred space.

For decades, Coptic and Ethiopian Christians have been fighting over the Deir el-Sultan monastery, which sits atop a chapel at the ancient Church of the Holy Sepulcher. The monastery is little more than a cluster of dilapidated rooms and a passageway divided into two incense-filled chapels, an architectural afterthought alongside the Holy Sepulcher's better-known features.

And yet Deir el-Sultan has become the subject of a feud that has gone far beyond the walls of Jerusalem's Old City. The Ethiopians control the site, but the Egypt-based Copts say they own it and see the Ethiopians as illegal squatters.

The quarrel has erupted into brawls — in 2002, when the Coptic monk moved his chair into the shade and too close to the Ethiopians, a dozen people were hurt in the ensuing melee. And today, the Ethiopians claim the fight could result in the monastery's collapse and even in damage to other parts of the church, one of the holiest sites in Christendom.

Since the 1970s, the Israeli government has refused to allow renovations or significant repairs at the disputed monastery until the Ethiopians and the Copts come to terms. That hasn't happened, and the Ethiopian Church says the years of neglect have put the structure in danger. The Copts suggest the Ethiopians are merely trying to further cement their hold.

The Ethiopian Church commissioned a report from an Israeli engineer backing up its claim, and in early October the Ethiopian patriarch, Archbishop Matthias, asked the Israeli government to carry out urgent repairs. The archbishop attached the engineer's assessment that the humble monastery structure could collapse — and possibly damage the chapel below — if steps are not taken to repair it.

The report, compiled by Yigal Berman of the Milav engineering firm, cited "safety hazards" that "endanger the lives of the monks and the visitors," according to a report in the daily Haaretz newspaper. Yifredew Getnet, a spokesman for the Ethiopian Embassy to Israel, confirmed the report. A committee made up of embassy representatives, churchmen and lay leaders has been appointed to oversee the monastery, he said.

Outside the monastery, Coptic monk Antonious El-Orshlemy said his church owns Deir el-Sultan, and that the Ethiopian claim that the monastery is about to collapse is false.

"The building is very fine, and not dangerous to someone," he said.

The most recent round of the feud began in 1970, when Ethiopian monks changed the locks while the Copts were at services on the eve of Easter and moved in.

The Ethiopian Church has six monasteries and 70 monks in the Holy Land, according to the office of the patriarch. A handful are stationed at Deir el-Sultan. The main parts of the Holy Sepulcher are divided between the Catholics, Armenians, and Greek Orthodox.

Three years before the Easter takeover, Israel captured the Old City from Jordan in the 1967 Mideast War and found itself in charge of the Holy Sepulcher.

The Copts appealed to an Israeli court, which ruled that the Ethiopians should not have altered the fragile status quo at the church but said it was the government's job to decide what to do. The government decided not to take action, according to Daniel Rossing, director of the Jerusalem Center for Jewish-Christian Relations and an expert on the city's fractious religious mosaic.

International politics likely played a role in the decision: At the time, Israel had warm ties with Ethiopia and was at war with Egypt. Later that was reversed: Communists came to power in Ethiopia and cut ties with Israel, and Egypt and Israel signed a peace agreement. But Israel still did not act, possibly because of concerns that angering Ethiopia could hamper the emigration of the country's Jewish community.

Feuds like the one over Deir el-Sultan "don't have a solution, period," Rossing said. "The trick, then, is to do the very best job to make things as livable as possible, within the limitations of never being able to solve these issues."

Israel's interior minister, Meir Sheetrit, now plans to mediate the dispute, and the government will help renovate the site as soon as the sides can agree on a course of action, said spokesman Ilan Marciano. But with each side entirely rejecting the other's claim to the monastery, it is unclear if an agreement is possible.

The feud is only one of a bewildering array of rivalries among churchmen in the Holy Sepulcher, where each group remains on guard against any encroachment onto their turf. Fights have flared over issues such as who is allowed to sweep which steps, and Israeli police occasionally intervene.

The Israeli government has long wanted to build a fire exit in the church, which regularly fills with thousands of pilgrims and has only one main door, but the plan is on hold because the sects cannot agree where the exit will be built. In another example, a ladder placed on a ledge over the entrance sometime in the 19th century has remained there ever since because of a dispute over who has the authority to take it down.

____

AP writer Shawna Ohm contributed to this report

Mysteries

According to Orthodox theology, the purpose of the Christian life is to attain theosis, the mystical union of man with God. This union is understood as both collective and individual. St. Athanasius of Alexandria, wrote concerning the Incarnation that, "He (Jesus) was made man that we might be made god (θεοποιηθῶμεν)".[26] See 2 Peter 1:4, John 10:34–36, Psalm 82:6. The entire life of the church is oriented towards making this possible and facilitating it.
In the Orthodox Church the terms “Mystery” or “The Mysteries” refer to the process of theosis. While it is understood that God theoretically can do anything instantly and invisibly, it is also understood that he generally chooses to use material substance as a medium in order to reach people. The limitations are those of mankind, not God. Matter is not considered to be evil by the Orthodox. Water, oil, bread, wine, etc., all are means by which God reaches out to allow people to draw closer to him. How this process works is a “Mystery”, and cannot be defined in human terms. These Mysteries are surrounded by prayer and symbolism so that their true meaning will not be forgotten.
Those things which in the West are often termed Sacraments or sacramentals are known among the Orthodox as the Sacred Mysteries. While the Roman Catholic Church numbers seven Sacraments, and many Protestant groups list two (Baptism and the Eucharist) or even none, the Orthodox do not limit the number. However, for the sake of convenience, catechisms will often speak of the seven Great Mysteries. Among these are Holy Communion (the most direct connection), Baptism, Chrismation, Confession, Unction, Matrimony, and Ordination. But the term also properly applies to other sacred actions such as monastic Tonsure or the blessing of holy water, and involves fasting, almsgiving, or an act as simple as lighting a candle, burning incense, praying or asking God's blessing on food.[27]

The Eastern Orthodox Church is the second largest single Christian communion in the world. It is believed by its adherents to be the very same Church established by Christ and his Apostles. It is composed of numerous but theologically unified autocephalous ecclesial bodies, each shepherded by a synod of independent bishops whose duty, among other things, is to preserve and teach the Apostolic and Patristic traditions and related Church practices. All Eastern Orthodox bishops claim to trace their lineage back to the twelve Apostles through the process of apostolic succession.
As a core belief, Eastern Orthodox Christians lay claim that the Eastern Orthodox Church is the authentic and original Christian Church established by Jesus Christ and his Apostles. As such, the Eastern Orthodox Church views itself as the preserver of the teachings and traditions given to the Early Christians by the Apostles nearly 2,000 years ago and the developer of conciliar interpretations which expand and illuminate the original teachings.

From Wikipedia.

Please Alhaji, What was the relevance of that?