The Eastern Orthodox Church, its thought and life

"The non-Orthodox Western European finds it most difficult to comprehend the Eastern Orthodox Church because he knows little about the life and doctrines of Orthodoxy and even this little is overlaid by many strata of prejudices and misunderstandings, partly religious, partly political in nature. One of the stumbling blocks has been our natural tendency to confound the ideas and customs of the Orthodox Church with familiar parallels in Roman Catholicism." The author counteracts the confusion, explaining the liturgy and sacraments, dogma, constitution and law of Eastern Orthodoxy. In a brief history, he describes the rise of Orthodox national Churches, schismatic Churches and Churches in exile; the role of monasticism--and its striking differences from Roman Catholic monasticism; the missionary work of the Orthodox Church; and the influence of Orthodoxy on politics and culture.