Apostles in the New Testament in the context of "Synaxis"

The Eastern Orthodox Church, officially the Orthodox Catholic Church, and also called the Greek Orthodox Church or simply the Orthodox Church, is one of the three major doctrinal and jurisdictional groups of Christianity. As of 2012, it has approximately 300 million adherents and is the third largest religious community in the world after Catholics and Sunni Muslims. The Eastern Orthodox Church operates as a communion of autocephalous churches, each governed by its bishops via local synods. The church has no central doctrinal or governmental authority analogous to the pope of the Catholic Church. Nevertheless, the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople is recognised by them as primus inter pares ('first among equals'), a title held by the patriarch of Rome prior to 1054. As one of the oldest surviving religious institutions in the world, the Eastern Orthodox Church has played an especially prominent role in the history and culture of Eastern and Southeastern Europe. Since 2018, there has been an ongoing schism between Constantinople and Moscow, with the two not in full communion with each other.

Eastern Orthodox theology is based on the Scriptures and holy tradition, which incorporates the dogmatic decrees of the seven ecumenical councils, and the teaching of the Church Fathers. The church teaches that it is the one, holy, catholic and apostolic church established by Jesus Christ in his Great Commission, and that its bishops are the successors of Christ's apostles. It maintains that it practises the original Christian faith, as passed down by holy tradition. Its patriarchates, descending from the pentarchy, and other autocephalous and autonomous churches, reflect a variety of hierarchical organisation. It recognises seven major sacraments (which are called holy mysteries), of which the Eucharist is the principal one, celebrated liturgically in synaxis. The church teaches that through consecration invoked by a priest, the sacrificial bread and wine become the body and blood of Christ. The Virgin Mary is venerated in the Eastern Orthodox Church as the Theotokos, which means 'God-bearer', and she is honoured in devotions.

The New Testament (NT) is the second division of the Christian biblical canon. It discusses the teachings and person of Jesus, as well as events relating to first-century Christianity. The New Testament's background, the first division of the Christian Bible, has the name of Old Testament, which is based primarily upon the Hebrew Bible; together they are regarded as Sacred Scripture by Christians.

The New Testament is a collection of 27 Christian texts written in Koine Greek by various authors, forming the second major division of the Christian Bible. It includes four gospels, the Acts of the Apostles, epistles attributed to Paul and other authors, and the Book of Revelation. The New Testament canon developed gradually over the first few centuries of Christianity through a complex process of debate, rejection of heretical texts, and recognition of writings deemed apostolic, culminating in the formalization of the 27-book canon by the late 4th century. It has been widely accepted across Christian traditions since Late Antiquity.

The Catholic Church (Latin: Ecclesia Catholica), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics worldwide as of 2025. It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions and has played a prominent role in the history and development of Western civilization. The Church consists of 24 sui iuris (autonomous) churches, including the Latin Church and 23 Eastern Catholic Churches, which comprise almost 3,500 dioceses and eparchies around the world, each overseen by one or more bishops. The pope, who is the bishop of Rome, is the chief pastor of the church.

The core beliefs of Catholicism are found in the Nicene Creed. The Catholic Church teaches that it is the one, holy, catholic and apostolic church founded by Jesus Christ in his Great Commission, that its bishops are the successors of Christ's apostles, and that the pope is the successor of Saint Peter, upon whom primacy was conferred by Jesus Christ. It maintains that it practises the original Christian faith taught by the apostles, preserving the faith infallibly through scripture and sacred tradition as authentically interpreted through the magisterium or teaching office of the church. The Roman Rite and others of the Latin Church, the Eastern Catholic liturgies, and communities and societies such as mendicant orders, enclosed monastic orders, third orders and voluntary charitable lay associations reflect a variety of theological and spiritual emphases in the church.

Andrew the Apostle (Koine Greek: Ἀνδρέας, romanized: Andréas [anˈdre.aːs̠]; Latin: Andreas [än̪ˈd̪reː.äːs]; Aramaic: אַנדּרֵאוָס; Classical Syriac: ܐܰܢܕ݁ܪܶܐܘܳܣ, romanized: ʾAnd'raʾwās) was an apostle of Jesus. According to the New Testament, he was a fisherman and one of the Twelve Apostles chosen by Jesus.

The title First-Called (Πρωτόκλητος, Prōtoklētos) used by the Eastern Orthodox Church stems from the Gospel of John, where Andrew, initially a disciple of John the Baptist, follows Jesus and, recognising him as the Messiah, introduces his brother Simon Peter to him.

In Christianity, a martyr is a person who was killed for their testimony for Jesus or faith in Jesus. In the years of the early church, stories depict this often occurring through death by sawing, stoning, crucifixion, burning at the stake, or other forms of torture and capital punishment. The word martyr comes from the Koine word μάρτυς, mártys, which means "witness" or "testimony".

At first, the term applied to the Apostles. Once Christians started to undergo persecution, the term came to be applied to those who suffered hardships for their faith. Finally, it was restricted to those who had been killed for their faith. The early Christian period before Constantine I was the "Age of Martyrs". "Early Christians venerated martyrs as powerful intercessors, and their utterances were treasured as inspired by the Holy Spirit."

The Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Antioch (Greek: Ελληνορθόδοξο Πατριαρχείο Αντιοχείας), also known as the Antiochian Orthodox Church and legally as the Rūm Orthodox Patriarchate of Antioch and All the East (Arabic: بطريركيّة أنطاكية وسائر المشرق للروم الأرثوذكس, romanized: Baṭriyarkiyyat ʾAnṭākiya wa-Sāʾir al-Mašriq li-r-Rūm al-ʾUrṯūḏuks, lit. 'Patriarchate of Antioch and All the East for the Orthodox Rum'), is an autocephalous Greek Orthodox church within the wider communion of Eastern Orthodox Christianity that originates from the historical Church of Antioch. Headed by the Greek Orthodox patriarch of Antioch, it considers itself the successor to the Christian community founded in Antioch by the Apostles Peter and Paul. It is one of the largest Christian denominations of the Middle East, alongside the Copts of Egypt and the Maronites of Lebanon.

Its adherents, known as Antiochian Christians, are a Middle-Eastern semi-ethnoreligious Eastern Christian group residing in the Levant region, including the Hatay Province of Turkey. Many of their descendants now live in the global Eastern Christian diaspora. The number of Antiochian Greek Christians is estimated to be approximately 4.3 million.

The expression "one true church" refers to an ecclesiological position asserting that Jesus gave his authority in the Great Commission solely to a particular visible Christian institutional church—what is commonly called a denomination. This view is maintained by the Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox Church, the Oriental Orthodox communion, the Assyrian Church of the East, the Ancient Church of the East, and the Lutheran churches, as well as certain Baptists. Each of them maintains that their own specific institutional church (denomination) exclusively represents the one and only original church. The claim to the title of the "one true church" relates to the first of the Four Marks of the Church mentioned in the Nicene Creed: "one, holy, catholic, and apostolic church". As such, it also relates to claims of both catholicity and apostolic succession: asserting inheritance of the spiritual, ecclesiastical and sacramental authority and responsibility that Jesus Christ gave to the apostles.

The concept of schism somewhat moderates the competing claims between some churches—one can potentially repair schism, since they are striving for the same goal. For example, the Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches each regard the other as schismatic and at very least heterodox, if not heretical, yet both have held dialogues and even partaken in Councils in attempts to resolve the division that exists between them.

Patriarchate (/ˈpeɪtriɑːrkɪt, -keɪt/, UK also /ˈpætri-/; Ancient Greek: πατριαρχεῖον, patriarcheîon) is an ecclesiological term in Christianity, referring to the office and jurisdiction of a patriarch.

According to Christian tradition, three patriarchates—Rome, Antioch, and Alexandria—were established by the apostles as apostolic sees in the 1st century. These were officially recognized by the First Council of Nicaea. The Patriarchate of Constantinople was added in the 4th century, and the Patriarchate of Jerusalem followed in the 5th century. These five sees were later recognized collectively as the pentarchy by the Council of Chalcedon in 451.

Mary was a first-century Jewish woman of Nazareth, the wife of Joseph and the mother of Jesus. She is an important figure of Christianity, venerated under various titles such as virgin or queen, many of them mentioned in the Litany of Loreto. The Eastern and Oriental Orthodox, Catholic, Evangelical Lutheran, Reformed, Anglican, Methodist and Baptist churches believe that Mary, as mother of Jesus, is the Mother of God. The Church of the East historically regarded her as Christotokos, a term still used in Assyrian Church of the East liturgy. She has the highest position in Islam among all women and is mentioned numerous times in the Quran, including in a chapter named after her. She is also revered in the Baháʼí Faith and the Druze Faith.

The synoptic Gospels name Mary as the mother of Jesus. The gospels of Matthew and Luke describe Mary as a virgin who was chosen by God to conceive Jesus through the Holy Spirit. After giving birth to Jesus in Bethlehem, she and her husband Joseph raised him in the city of Nazareth in Galilee, and she was in Jerusalem at his crucifixion and with the apostles after his ascension. Although her later life is not accounted in the Bible; Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, and some Protestant traditions believe that her body was raised into heaven at the end of her earthly life, which is known in Western Christianity as the Assumption of Mary and in Eastern Christianity as the Dormition of the Mother of God.