What do Eastern Orthodox Christians believe?

The argument

Orthodoxy differs substantially from the other Churches in the way of life and worship, and in certain aspects of theology. The church still claims to be the original and correct Christian faith, established by the apostles. By maintaining the correct form of worshipping God, passed on from the very beginnings of Christianity, they believe that they practice the true doctrine of God in the right (orthodox) way. For Orthodox Christians, worship joins the human being to God in prayer and unites them to the Church, the body of Christ. The main service is called the Divine Liturgy, during which people receive the bread and wine. There are three main parts of Divine Liturgy: the Proskomedia (meaning 'offering', when the bread and wine is prepared), the Liturgy of the Catechumens (focused on the word of God in the Bible) and the Liturgy of the Faithful (focused on the Eucharist). The Great Litany asks for blessings on the Church and the world. Believers ask the saints to offer their prayers to God - this is called the intercession of the saints. Much of the service follows a similar pattern to Roman Catholic Mass and Anglican Holy Communion. Orthodox churches have many symbols including candles, incense and icons. Orthodox Christians do not worship the icons, but pray through the icons to God. Orthodox Services can be elaborate, solemn, and lengthy and they express a deep and pervasive sense of joy. In order to enhance this feeling and to encourage full participation, Services are always sung or chanted.

Premises

Counter-arguments

The entry mostly describes Orthodox worship — the structure of the Divine Liturgy, icons, incense, chanting, the intercession of the saints — rather than the distinctive beliefs the question asks about, and much of what it lists is shared with other churches rather than peculiar to Orthodoxy. The body concedes as much when it notes that 'much of the service follows a similar pattern to Roman Catholic Mass and Anglican Holy Communion': the Eucharist, veneration of saints, and the claim to apostolic origin are common ground with Catholicism, so cataloguing them does not isolate what makes Orthodox belief distinctive. The genuinely characteristic Orthodox positions go unmentioned — the rejection of papal supremacy, the rejection of the filioque clause in the Nicene Creed, and the central theology of theosis, deification as the goal of the Christian life. Meanwhile the claim to be 'the original and correct' church established by the apostles is a self-description that Rome makes in parallel about itself, so presenting it as a defining Orthodox belief, without noting that the very same claim is contested from the other side, states one party's position in an ancient ecclesiological dispute as though it were settled fact. The result conflates liturgical practice with doctrine and understates the specifically Orthodox theological distinctives.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] The entry mostly describes worship practice — the Divine Liturgy, icons, chanting — rather than distinctive belief, and it concedes much follows the Roman Catholic pattern, so it does not isolate what is doctrinally distinctive to Orthodoxy. [Rejecting P2] The claim to be 'the original and correct' church mirrors Rome's parallel claim; the genuinely distinctive Orthodox positions — rejection of papal supremacy and the filioque, and the theology of theosis — go unmentioned.