Chapter 1 – What is True Orthodoxy?
When people hear the word Orthodoxy, they often think of a particular church, a set of doctrines, or a label worn in contrast to others: “we are orthodox, they are not.” But if we go to the heart of the word itself, Orthodoxy is not first about a badge or a boundary. It is about a way of seeing God, glorifying God, and participating in God’s life through Jesus Christ.
In this chapter we will challenge some of the most common assumptions about Orthodoxy—especially those inherited from Western, sin-centered frameworks—and rediscover true Orthodoxy as:
Right glory, not right opinion
Participation, not ideology
Cosmic, not tribal
Christ-centered, not sin-centered
This will lead us to a crucial conclusion:
If we do not redefine the fundamentals of our faith in the light of Jesus Christ and the Holy Trinity, we will continue to defend systems, labels, and tribal loyalties instead of living the life of true Orthodoxy.
1. Orthodoxy as Right Glory, Not Right Opinion
The word orthodoxy comes from two Greek words:
orthos – straight, true, upright
doxa – glory, worship, praise (and only secondarily, “opinion”)
In much of the modern world, doxa has been flattened into “opinion”—so Orthodoxy gets reduced to “correct views,” “correct statements,” or “correct theological positions.” But in the language of the Church, doxa is first and foremost glory. It is what we give to God in worship, thanksgiving, and adoration.
So true Orthodoxy is first about “right glory” – right worship – not mere “right opinion.”
1.1. Right Glory: How We Stand Before God
To speak of right glory is to speak of how we stand before the Holy Trinity:
Do we stand as children before the Father, through Jesus Christ, in the Holy Spirit?
Do we stand with fear that comes from terror and confusion, or with reverence that comes from love and trust?
Do we worship God as revealed in Christ, or some distorted image of God shaped by anger, tribalism, or projection?
Orthodoxy becomes false the moment worship is disconnected from the true God. A person can repeat perfect formulas and still be deeply un-orthodox in their heart if:
They imagine God as primarily a tyrant to be appeased.
They glorify power, ethnicity, or ideology more than the Father who is revealed by the Only-Begotten Son.
Their worship is mostly fear of punishment rather than love of the Truth.
True Orthodoxy asks first:
Whom are we glorifying?
Are we glorifying the Holy Trinity revealed in Jesus Christ, or a god of our own making?
1.2. Doctrines as Windows, Not Idols
Doctrines are necessary. The Church confesses the Trinity, the Incarnation, the Cross, the Resurrection, and the life of the age to come. But doctrines are not an end in themselves; they are windows, not idols.
A window is something you look through to see the light.
An idol is something you stare at as if it is the light.
When doctrine is used as a window, it leads us to Christ, who is the one Mediator between creation and the Holy Trinity. Doctrine then preserves the right glory due to God—it protects the truth that:
The Father is not confused with the Son.
The Son is not confused with creation.
The Holy Spirit is not an impersonal energy but a divine Person.
But when doctrine is used as an idol, it turns into weaponized opinion. People begin to say:
“We are right because we say the correct words.”
“They are wrong because they don’t use our exact formulas.”
At that moment, Orthodoxy is no longer about right glory, but about self-glory. What is defended is not the face of Christ, but the ego of a group.
True Orthodoxy restores the priority:
Worship first, explanation second.
The living Christ first, concepts about Christ second.
2. Orthodoxy as Participation, Not Ideology
If Orthodoxy is right glory, then it must also be right participation. Orthodoxy is not a theory about God that we hold in our minds; it is a life in God that we enter through Jesus Christ.
2.1. Faith as Communion, Not Just Agreement
In many Western frameworks, “faith” is reduced to mental agreement:
“Do you believe these statements?”
“Do you accept this doctrinal system?”
But in the life of the Church, faith is trusting surrender to the living Christ and sharing in His life:
In Baptism, we die and rise with Him.
In the Eucharist, we receive His Body and Blood, participating in His once-for-all sacrifice.
In prayer, we address the Father through the Son in the Holy Spirit.
In repentance, we turn away from distortion and return to communion.
Orthodoxy is therefore not a spectator sport. It is not “I watch the correct religion from a distance.” It is:
I step into the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ and allow Him to reorder my entire existence.
2.2. Not an Ideology, but a Living Way
An ideology is a system of ideas that seeks to control how we interpret the world. It can be religious, political, or philosophical, but it always functions like a rigid grid:
It defines enemies and friends.
It tells you whom to blame.
It demands loyalty to the system, often more than to the truth.
When Christianity is turned into an ideology:
Christ becomes a “symbol of our side” instead of the true Lord of all.
The Cross becomes a banner of group identity instead of the place of self-emptying love.
“Orthodox” becomes a label used to exclude, rather than a call to deeper repentance and life.
True Orthodoxy refuses to become a mere system. It insists:
The purpose of doctrine is union with God, not control over others.
The Church exists to heal, not merely to win debates.
Holiness is measured by love, humility, and truthfulness, not by clever arguments.
2.3. Participation Through Christ the Mediator
According to the Christian mystery, the Holy Trinity is beyond all creation, and yet draws near to us through Jesus Christ, the incarnate Logos. True Orthodoxy never forgets:
All genuine participation in God is through Christ.
He is the single Mediator between the Holy Trinity and creation.
Every sacrament, every prayer, every act of worship that is truly Christian passes through Him.
This keeps Orthodoxy from collapsing into vague spirituality. We are not just “feeling the divine” in a general way—we are entering, through Christ, into the life of the Father, in the Holy Spirit. That is participation, not ideology.
3. Orthodoxy as Cosmic, Not Tribal
Another distortion we must confront is the idea that Orthodoxy is the spiritual property of one nation, one ethnicity, or one historical bloc. True Orthodoxy is cosmic in scope.
3.1. The Church in the Heart of the Cosmos
In the Christian vision:
The Holy Trinity is the ultimate and outermost reality—beyond all creation.
Jesus Christ, true God and true Man, stands as the unique Mediator between the Trinity and creation.
Within His mediating realm are the invisible universe (heavenly hosts, saints, spiritual realities), and within that the visible cosmos, and within that humanity.
The Church is not just a human organization on earth. It is:
A liturgical participation in the worship that Christ, as true Man, offers to the Father in the Holy Spirit on behalf of all creation.
This means Orthodoxy is cosmic:
When the Church prays, it prays for all, not just for one tribe.
When the Church celebrates the Eucharist, it stands at the center of the cosmos, offering bread and wine—fruits of the earth and human labor—to God through Christ.
The entire visible and invisible creation is, in a mysterious way, drawn into this offering.
3.2. Beyond Ethnic or Sectarian Ownership
History has given us many local churches: Greek, Syriac, Armenian, Slavic, Indian, and more. These local traditions are precious. But whenever any group begins to think:
“Orthodoxy belongs to us; others are outsiders,”
they fall into a tribal mindset.
Tribal religion:
Sacralizes clan identity.
Uses God as a justification for rivalry and exclusion.
Treats other Christians—and even other humans—as a threat instead of neighbors and potential brothers and sisters.
Cosmic Orthodoxy, on the other hand:
Sees every human person as someone for whom Christ died.
Recognizes that the goal of the Church is not the victory of one group, but the healing of the whole creation.
Refuses to shrink God into the size of our ethnic, cultural, or political battles.
3.3. The Cosmic Liturgy
In true Orthodoxy, liturgy is not just a human performance:
We join the angels and saints who ceaselessly glorify God.
We stand with all creation, visible and invisible, in thanksgiving.
Our worship is a participation in the cosmic movement of creation back to the Creator through Christ.
To call this true Orthodoxy is to remind ourselves:
We are not a religious club protecting our brand.
We are a people called to join the cosmic glorification of the Holy Trinity in Christ.
4. Removing Western Lenses: Sin-Centered vs Christ-Centered
Much of what passes as “Christian fundamentals” in the modern world is shaped by Western legal and psychological frameworks:
God is primarily understood as a Judge.
Humanity is primarily seen as guilty defendants.
Salvation is framed as a legal transaction to remove penalty.
This creates a sin-centered paradigm:
The starting point is our guilt.
The focus is primarily on avoiding punishment.
The Gospel becomes a mechanism to escape wrath, rather than a revelation of the Father through the Son.
4.1. The Problem with a Sin-Centered Paradigm
A sin-centered lens leads to several distortions:
God becomes terrifying rather than trustworthy.
Many believers live in constant anxiety: “Have I done enough? Will God punish me?”Christ is reduced to a legal solution.
Instead of seeing Him as the full revelation of God’s heart and the Mediator of all creation, He is seen mainly as the one who satisfies a requirement.The Christian life becomes moral bookkeeping.
Count your sins, count your merits.
Confess mainly out of fear of consequences, not out of desire for healing and communion.
In such a system, even people who call themselves “orthodox” can end up worshipping a God they secretly dread.
4.2. A Christ-Centered Paradigm
True Orthodoxy is unapologetically Christ-centered:
We begin not with our sin, but with who God has shown Himself to be in Jesus Christ.
Christ reveals the true face of the Father and the true destiny of humanity.
The Cross is not just a legal settlement; it is the supreme act of self-giving love and the victory over death and corruption.
In a Christ-centered paradigm:
Sin is real and serious, but it is understood as woundedness and distortion that needs healing, not simply as legal crime needing punishment.
Repentance is a return to the Father through Christ, not just a fear-driven attempt to avoid penalties.
Holiness is sharing in Christ’s life—His humility, truth, and love—rather than merely avoiding certain behaviors.
4.3. Removing the Lenses, Recovering the Face
“Removing Western lenses” does not mean despising everything Western or rejecting all Western Christians. It means recognizing when certain frameworks:
Hide the tenderness of the Father.
Reduce Christ to a function instead of a Person.
Turn the Holy Spirit into an occasional helper instead of the One who indwells and transforms us.
True Orthodoxy insists:
We must look at everything—Scripture, tradition, theology—through the face of Jesus Christ, the Only-Begotten Son, the true image of the Father, and the sole Mediator between the Holy Trinity and creation.
Only then does the Gospel appear as good news, not merely as a complex legal arrangement.
5. Why We Must Redefine the Fundamentals
Given all of this, the question arises:
Why speak of “redefining the fundamentals”?
Isn’t Orthodoxy about preserving what has been handed down?
The answer is subtle but crucial:
We are not redefining God.
We are not inventing a new Christ.
We are not creating a new Trinity.
Rather, we are re-examining our “fundamentals” to ensure that they truly correspond to the revelation of God in Christ, and not to distortions we have inherited from culture, fear, or ideology.
5.1. Fundamentals vs. Accretions
Over centuries, sincere believers have:
Added layers of explanation.
Imported philosophical assumptions.
Fused political and ethnic loyalties with theological identity.
Some of these elements may be harmless; others can actively obscure the Gospel. For example:
When “being orthodox” means primarily “belonging to our group,” the fundamental has been replaced by tribalism.
When “the fear of God” is interpreted mainly as terror of punishment, the fundamental truth of God as Father is distorted.
When reading Scripture is governed by a single rigid system instead of the living Christ, the Bible becomes a battlefield instead of a revelation.
True Orthodoxy calls us back to the fundamentals as they exist in Christ:
The Holy Trinity as the ultimate reality of love.
Jesus Christ as the incarnate Logos and sole Mediator.
The Holy Spirit as the One who makes us participants in the divine life.
The Church as the cosmic body called to heal and glorify, not to dominate.
5.2. The Role of “Right Division” (Orthotomio)
To redefine the fundamentals properly, we must learn to rightly divide—to practice orthotomio:
Distinguishing between what truly reveals the Father in Christ and what does not.
Recognizing when certain images of God in our minds are more shaped by fear, tribal history, or other spiritual powers than by the Gospel.
Reading Scripture with attention to text, pretext, context, and audience, asking:
Who is speaking?
To whom?
Under what covenant, assumptions, and spiritual influences?
How does this passage relate to the full revelation in Christ?
Without this right division, people may cling to harmful images of God, text by text, verse by verse, and call it “orthodox,” even when those images contradict what Christ reveals.
5.3. Returning to Christ as the Living Measure
Ultimately, redefining the fundamentals means returning to one living criterion:
Jesus Christ Himself is the measure of what is truly orthodox.
Anything that contradicts His revelation of the Father, His humility, His truthfulness, His self-giving love, cannot be the final norm for our understanding of God, even if it appears in religious clothing.
Thus, we must ask of every “fundamental” we have inherited:
Does this lead me to trust the Father revealed in Christ—or to fear a god of terror and arbitrariness?
Does this deepen my participation in the life of the Holy Trinity—or does it keep me in ideology and anxiety?
Does this foster cosmic compassion and intercession for all creation—or does it harden me in tribal defensiveness?
If the answer is wrong, then that “fundamental” needs to be re-examined, purified, or discarded in the light of Christ.
Conclusion: The Path Ahead
In this first chapter, we have begun to answer the question: What is true Orthodoxy?
It is right glory, not just right opinion.
It is participation in the life of God, not a religious ideology.
It is cosmic in scope, not confined to any tribe or ethnicity.
It is Christ-centered, not sin-centered or fear-centered.
And for that reason, it demands that we redefine our fundamentals in the light of the Only-Begotten Son, the true Mediator, who reveals the Father in the Holy Spirit.