Eastern Faith, a brief Explanation

Over the last couple of months, I've discussed elements of Eastern Christian faith that have personal meanings to me. The last posting dealt with the history and origins of Eastern faith, and this one deals with how Eastern Christianity is different.

For me, it offers me a chance to trasncend the present, and join in a shared worship and tradition with those who believed in times and places far from the here and now, as well as pay tribute to those who carefully preserved the faith, protecting it from needless change, subjecting anything new to close and cautious examination. It allows me to step outside of myself, and become part of something that knows neither time nor place, as the message of our Christian faith should be.

A good summary of how Eastern faith differs from the West is:

A very important point of difference between the Eastern and Western mind is in the way each tends to approach theology. The West typically studies a subject by dissecting it into smaller units and then classifying each unit by a set of definitions. The East, on the other hand, studies a matter by observing how the entire subject relates to each of its parts. With this latter approach, a Christian adopting an Eastern perspective would seek to understand a particular Christian teaching from within the context of all Christian doctrine, not as an isolated unit.

I hope this answers some questions ya'll may have about my posting.

For more of the above explanation of Eastern faith, go online to http://www.holytrinity.ok.goarch.org/Orthodoxy/IntoOrthodoxy.html