The Orthodox Church

What The Orthodox Church is

The Orthodox Church is Kallistos Ware's single-volume introduction to Eastern Orthodox Christianity, first published by Penguin in 1963 and revised in later editions. It is built in two parts. Part One narrates the history of the Orthodox Church — from the early Church and the councils, through the gradual estrangement of East and West that culminated in the Great Schism, the long Byzantine era, the centuries under Ottoman and then Soviet rule, and the dispersion of Orthodoxy into Western Europe and the Americas. Part Two sets out Orthodox belief and worship: the doctrine of God and the Holy Trinity, the theology of icons, the sacraments (the mysteries), the concept of theosis or deification, and the Orthodox understanding of the Church.

The book is written from inside the tradition it describes, and Ware never hides that. He was an English convert to Orthodoxy who became a monk and later a bishop, and his aim was to give the English-speaking world a clear, sympathetic, accessible doorway into a tradition most Western readers had only ever glimpsed. It presents the Orthodox perspective — on history, on the Schism, on doctrine — as the tradition itself understands it. That insider clarity is the book's defining feature and the reason it has remained the standard introduction for more than sixty years rather than being displaced by a newer title.

Why inquirers reach for Ware first

Most introductions to a Christian tradition are written either by outsiders looking in — academic, distanced, occasionally cold — or by insiders writing for people already inside, who assume the vocabulary and the loyalties. Ware threaded a needle almost nobody else has managed in English. He writes as a committed member of the Orthodox Church, with the warmth and confidence of someone describing his own home, but he never forgets that his reader may have walked in off the street with no Greek, no church background, and no idea what an iconostasis is. He defines as he goes, and he never makes the reader feel behind.

The result is a book that serves a remarkably wide audience without flattening anyone. A Catholic reader gets a lucid account of where East and West diverged, presented as the Orthodox tradition understands it, without being harangued. A Protestant reader gets an honest map of why icons, the Liturgy, and the sacramental life look the way they do. A Latter-day Saint reader, or any reader simply curious about the Christian East, gets a coherent picture of a 2,000-year-old tradition explained in plain English. That combination — insider authority, outsider accessibility — is why a priest, a professor, and a curious friend all tend to hand a newcomer the same book.

Part One: the history, from the early Church to the modern diaspora

The first half of the book is a narrative history of the Orthodox Church, and it is the part that orients most readers. Ware begins with the early Church and the ecumenical councils that defined the shared Christian creed, then traces the slow cultural, political, and theological drift between the Greek East and the Latin West — the disputes over papal authority and the wording of the creed among them — that hardened over centuries and is conventionally dated to the Great Schism of 1054. From there he moves through the Byzantine centuries, the fall of Constantinople, the long experience of Orthodox Christians living under Ottoman rule, the Russian Church and its trials under Communism, and finally the spread of Orthodoxy into Western Europe and the Americas in the twentieth century.

Two things make this history work as an introduction. First, it is told as a story, not as a catalogue of dates — Ware keeps the through-line of how a unified early Church became the distinct Eastern and Western communions we know today. Second, it is openly the Orthodox reading of that story, and Ware says as much; he presents the Schism and the relationship with Rome from the Orthodox side without sliding into polemic. A reader who wants a neutral or Western account of the same events will want to set another historian beside it, and Ware would not object — but as a first map of how Orthodoxy understands its own past, the narrative is hard to beat for clarity.

Part Two: doctrine and worship, explained in plain terms

The second half turns from history to belief and practice, and this is where the book earns its place on syllabi. Ware works through the central themes of Orthodox theology one at a time: God and the Holy Trinity; the person and work of Christ; the theology of icons and why they occupy the place they do in Orthodox devotion; the sacraments, which Orthodox Christians call the mysteries, including baptism, the Eucharist, and the rest; and the idea of theosis or deification — the teaching that the goal of human life is to be united with God and transformed into His likeness. He closes on the nature of the Church itself, which for the Orthodox is inseparable from worship and the Liturgy.

What keeps these chapters readable is that Ware never lets the doctrine float free of practice. Icons are explained alongside what an Orthodox Christian actually does in front of one. The mysteries are described in terms of the rites a worshipper participates in. Theosis is presented not as an abstraction but as the purpose animating the whole sacramental life. The book reports these teachings as the Orthodox tradition holds them — it is an exposition, not a comparison — so a reader from any background comes away understanding what Orthodox Christians believe and why it hangs together, which is exactly what an introduction is supposed to deliver.

The voice: an insider writing for the newcomer

The least quantifiable strength of the book is its tone, and it may be the most important. Ware writes with the settled confidence of someone describing a tradition he has given his life to — he converted to Orthodoxy as a young man and was eventually consecrated a bishop — but the prose is never insular. He assumes nothing. The first time a term like hesychasm or theotokos or autocephalous appears, it is explained. The structure is signposted so a reader always knows where they are in the argument. The effect is less like a lecture and more like being shown around by a patient, well-read host who genuinely wants you to understand.

That tone is also what keeps the book usable for such a mixed audience. Ware does not write as though every reader is a prospective convert, nor as though every reader is a skeptic to be won. He simply explains. For a Catholic or Protestant reader the book is a window into a sister-or-cousin tradition; for a reader of any other background it is a clear, sympathetic account of one of the oldest continuous expressions of the Christian faith. Many readers report that the calm of the voice is what carried them through chapters on subjects — the councils, the Schism, the finer points of sacramental theology — that could easily have been dry in another writer's hands.

Pricing

Where The Orthodox Church falls behind

Depth for specialists. The book is an introduction, and a deliberately accessible one, so a reader who already knows the basics — or who needs graduate-level treatment of patristics, conciliar history, or sacramental theology — will outgrow it quickly. Ware himself points such readers toward fuller and more technical works. As a first book it is excellent; as a last word it was never meant to be.

A single vantage point on the history. Part One is the Orthodox reading of Church history, and Ware is candid that it is. On the Great Schism and the relationship with Rome in particular, a reader who wants a neutral or Western account of the same events will need to read other historians beside it. That is not a defect of the book — it is doing what an introduction to a tradition does — but it is worth knowing going in.

Practical hand-holding for visitors. The book explains what Orthodoxy believes far more thoroughly than it walks a newcomer through the experience of a first Divine Liturgy or the process of inquiry and reception. A reader who mainly wants a how-to for visiting or joining a parish will need to supplement it with something more practical, or simply with a local priest.

Currency. Even revised editions of a book first published in 1963 carry some sense of their era, especially in the chapters on modern jurisdictions, statistics, and Church politics, which keep moving after any given printing goes to press. The core history and doctrine hold up; the most contemporary material is the part most likely to feel a step behind the present.

The Orthodox Church vs. The Orthodox Way vs. the Orthodox Study Bible

These three are the shortlist a newcomer to Eastern Orthodoxy is most often handed, and they do genuinely different jobs. The Orthodox Church (Ware, 1963) is the introduction-as-overview — half history, half doctrine, the book that gives you the whole landscape in one volume. The Orthodox Way (Ware, 1979) is the same author's shorter, more devotional companion — it walks through the Christian life as Orthodoxy understands it (God as mystery, as creator, as Trinity, as Spirit, as prayer) rather than narrating history. The Orthodox Study Bible is a study Bible rather than a topical book — Scripture with Orthodox study notes, intended for ongoing reading rather than a single sit-through.

Different strengths. The Orthodox Church is the best single starting point for understanding the tradition as a whole — its story and its system in one place. The Orthodox Way is better once you want the interior, prayerful dimension and less of the history. The Orthodox Study Bible is the one you live with over time, the resource for reading Scripture within the tradition rather than reading about the tradition. If you are starting from zero and want one book, it is still The Orthodox Church. Add The Orthodox Way when you want depth of devotion; add the study Bible when you want to read Scripture with Orthodox notes at hand.

All three are produced from within the Orthodox tradition and present it as Orthodox Christians understand it. Ware's two books are the work of one of the tradition's most respected English-language voices; the study Bible is a collaborative project with Orthodox editorial oversight. A reader from a Catholic, Protestant, or other background can use any of them to understand Orthodoxy on its own terms — they are expositions of the tradition, not comparisons among traditions.

Alternatives to The Orthodox Church