Our Faith

Orthodox Christianity is the oldest continuous Christian tradition in the world, tracing an unbroken line of faith, worship, and teaching from the Apostles of Jesus Christ to the present day. With over 250 million faithful worldwide, it is the second-largest Christian communion on earth, yet it remains, for many in the West, a beautiful and profound discovery waiting to be made.

The word "Orthodox" means both "right belief" and "right worship," and these two dimensions are inseparable in the life of the Church. Orthodox Christians hold fast to Holy Tradition, the fullness of the Apostolic faith as it has been handed down through Sacred Scripture, the decrees of the Seven Ecumenical Councils (from Nicaea in 325 AD to Nicaea again in 787 AD), the writings of the Church Fathers, the liturgical life, and the lived experience of the saints across every generation.

Unlike traditions that emphasize individual interpretation of Scripture alone, Orthodoxy understands the Bible as a living book born within the Church and properly understood within the Church's life of prayer, worship, and communal discernment. Scripture, Tradition, and the guidance of the Holy Spirit together form the foundation of Orthodox faith and practice.

The Orthodox Church understands herself as the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church confessed in the Creed, the very Body of Christ, in which the faithful are joined to their Lord and to one another through Baptism, the Eucharist, and a common life of repentance, prayer, and love. She is not a denomination among others, but the continuing community founded by Christ and His Apostles at Pentecost, preserved in unity of faith across centuries of persecution, empire, and change.

At the heart of the Orthodox Christian faith stands the mystery of the Holy Trinity: one God in three Persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. This is not an abstract doctrine but the living reality of who God is and how He has revealed Himself to us through creation, through Scripture, and above all through the Incarnation of His Son, Jesus Christ.

The Orthodox Church confesses her faith in the Holy Trinity through the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed, composed at the First (325 AD) and Second (381 AD) Ecumenical Councils. This Creed declares that the Son is "of one essence with the Father" and that the Holy Spirit "proceeds from the Father", a point on which the Orthodox Church differs from the Western tradition, which later added the word Filioque ("and the Son") to the Creed without the consent of an Ecumenical Council. The Orthodox insistence on the original wording is not a minor technicality but a matter of faithfulness to the Apostolic deposit and to the conciliar authority of the undivided Church.

While God is utterly beyond human comprehension in His essence, no created mind can grasp what God is in Himself, He is truly known and experienced through His divine energies: His grace, His light, His love poured out in the world. This distinction between God's unknowable essence and His knowable energies, articulated most fully by Saint Gregory Palamas in the fourteenth century, safeguards both the transcendence and the nearness of God. He is infinitely beyond us, and yet intimately present to us.

Every Orthodox prayer, every blessing, every sacrament begins and ends in the name of the Holy Trinity. The life of the Church is nothing other than life in the Trinity, a communion of love that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit share eternally, and into which every human person is invited.

Orthodox Christian worship is an experience of heaven on earth. The Divine Liturgy, primarily the Liturgy of Saint John Chrysostom, composed in the fourth century, is the central act of the Church's life, in which the faithful gather to hear the Word of God, to offer praise and thanksgiving, and to receive the most holy Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ in the Eucharist.

To enter an Orthodox church during the Liturgy is to encounter the faith with all the senses. The fragrance of incense rises like prayer toward heaven. The holy icons gaze down from the walls and the iconostasis, surrounding the congregation with the presence of the saints. The ancient melodies of Byzantine and Slavic chant fill the space, carrying the psalms and hymns of the Church across centuries. And at the heart of it all stands the Holy Table, where bread and wine are offered and, by the power of the Holy Spirit, become truly and really the Body and Blood of Christ, not a symbol, but the very Presence of the Lord given for the life of the world.

Beyond the Sunday Liturgy, the Orthodox Church maintains a rich cycle of daily worship: Vespers in the evening, Matins in the morning, and the canonical Hours throughout the day. The liturgical year unfolds as a continuous journey through the life of Christ, the feasts of the Theotokos and the saints, and the great seasons of fasting and celebration, with Pascha (Easter), the Feast of Feasts, as its radiant center.

At Saint Sava Cathedral, the Divine Liturgy is celebrated every Sunday at 10:00 AM, and Vespers is served on Fridays at 5:00 PM. All are welcome to attend, to pray, and to experience the beauty of Orthodox worship. We invite you to come and see.

The Orthodox Church speaks of her sacraments as "Holy Mysteries", sacred actions through which God's grace is bestowed upon the faithful in ways that transcend full human understanding. They are called Mysteries not because they are secret, but because they are encounters with the living God whose love and power exceed anything the mind can contain.

The Church recognizes seven principal Mysteries. Baptism is the door of entry into the Church: through triple immersion in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, the person dies and rises with Christ, is cleansed of sin, and is born anew into the life of the Kingdom. Immediately following Baptism, Chrismation (Confirmation) seals the newly baptized with the gift of the Holy Spirit through anointing with holy chrism, bestowing the grace to live and grow in the faith.

The Holy Eucharist is the Mystery of Mysteries, the very Body and Blood of Christ, received by the faithful for the forgiveness of sins and eternal life. In Confession (Repentance), the Christian acknowledges sins before God in the presence of the priest and receives absolution, restoring the soul to communion with Christ and the Church. Holy Unction (Anointing of the Sick) is the anointing with blessed oil for the healing of body and soul, offered to all the faithful and especially to those who are ill.

Marriage (Holy Matrimony) unites a man and a woman in a bond of love that reflects the union of Christ and His Church; the couple is crowned as king and queen of a small domestic church. Ordination (Holy Orders) sets apart bishops, priests, and deacons for the ministry of word and sacrament, continuing the Apostolic ministry within the Church.

Together, these Holy Mysteries accompany the faithful from birth to death and beyond, sanctifying every stage of human life and drawing each person more deeply into the love of the Holy Trinity.

Walk into any Orthodox church and you will be surrounded by icons, sacred images of Christ, the Theotokos (the Mother of God), the angels, and the saints. These are not mere decorations. In the Orthodox understanding, icons are "windows to heaven," making present the holy persons they depict and drawing the worshiper into communion with the great cloud of witnesses who have gone before us in faith.

The theological basis for iconography rests on the central mystery of the Christian faith: the Incarnation. Because God the Son took on human flesh and became visible in the person of Jesus Christ, He can be depicted in images. To deny the possibility of depicting Christ is, in a certain sense, to deny that He truly became man. This was the teaching upheld by the Seventh Ecumenical Council, held in Nicaea in 787 AD, which defended the veneration of icons against the iconoclasts who sought to destroy them.

It is essential to understand that Orthodox Christians venerate icons, they do not worship them. Worship belongs to God alone. The honor given to an icon passes to the person it represents, as Saint Basil the Great taught: "The honor paid to the image passes to the prototype." When we kiss an icon of Christ, we are expressing our love for Christ Himself. When we light a candle before an icon of a saint, we are asking that saint to pray for us before the throne of God.

At the front of every Orthodox church stands the iconostasis, the icon screen that separates the nave from the sanctuary. Far from being a barrier, the iconostasis is a meeting point between heaven and earth, adorned with icons of Christ, the Theotokos, the Apostles, and the saints, reminding the faithful that the Church on earth worships together with the Church in heaven. The entire interior of an Orthodox temple, its frescoes, mosaics, and icons, is a single, unified proclamation of the Gospel in form and color.

The Orthodox liturgical year is a living journey through the mystery of salvation, beginning on September 1 and reaching its summit at Pascha, the Resurrection of Christ, the "Feast of Feasts" and the "Holy Day of Holy Days." Around this radiant center, the Church celebrates the Twelve Great Feasts, commemorating the key moments of Christ's life on earth and the life of the Most Holy Theotokos.

The Twelve Great Feasts include the Nativity of the Theotokos, the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, the Nativity of Christ, the Baptism of the Lord (Theophany), the Presentation of Christ in the Temple (Sretenje), the Annunciation, the Entry into Jerusalem (Palm Sunday), the Ascension, Pentecost, the Transfiguration, the Dormition of the Theotokos, and the Presentation of the Theotokos in the Temple. Each feast is accompanied by its own hymns, readings, and iconographic tradition, and each reveals a different facet of God's saving work.

Alongside the feasts, the Church prescribes regular periods of fasting as a discipline of body and soul. The four major fasting seasons are Great Lent (the forty days before Pascha, the most solemn and intense of all), the Nativity Fast (forty days before Christmas), the Apostles' Fast (after Pentecost, variable in length), and the Dormition Fast (two weeks before the Dormition of the Theotokos on August 15). In addition, Orthodox Christians fast every Wednesday (in remembrance of Christ's betrayal) and Friday (in remembrance of His Crucifixion) throughout the year.

Orthodox fasting is not mere dieting. It is a spiritual discipline, a voluntary act of self-denial undertaken in love, intended to deepen prayer, sharpen the conscience, and free the soul from the tyranny of appetite and comfort. Fasting and feasting together form the rhythm of Orthodox life, teaching the faithful that all of time is sanctified and that every season points toward the joy of the Resurrection.

The Serbian Orthodox Church follows the Julian calendar (Old Calendar) for the calculation of Pascha and the fixed feasts, which means that Serbian Orthodox Christmas falls on January 7 (Gregorian) and Pascha is celebrated according to the ancient paschal reckoning. This faithfulness to the Julian calendar connects the Serbian Church to the broader tradition of the Slavic Orthodox world.

The Serbian Orthodox Church is one of the oldest autocephalous (self-governing) Orthodox churches in the world, with a history reaching back to the earliest centuries of Christianity among the South Slavic peoples. Her independence was secured in 1219 when Saint Sava, the beloved patron of the Serbian people, after whom our cathedral is named, was consecrated as the first Archbishop of the Serbian Church.

Saint Sava (Rastko Nemanjic, c. 1174-1236) was the youngest son of the Serbian Grand Prince Stefan Nemanja. As a young man he renounced worldly power and departed for the Holy Mountain of Athos, where he became a monk. He later returned to Serbia and labored tirelessly to organize the Church, establish monasteries, educate the people, and unite the Serbian lands under a single spiritual authority. His legacy endures in every Serbian Orthodox parish around the world, and his name is synonymous with the Serbian commitment to faith, learning, and national identity rooted in Christ.

Throughout her history, the Serbian Church has been inseparable from the life of the Serbian people. The Kosovo Covenant, the spiritual understanding that emerged from the Battle of Kosovo in 1389, when the Serbian Prince Lazar chose the "heavenly kingdom" over earthly submission, became a defining element of Serbian consciousness. Through centuries of Ottoman occupation, the monasteries and the priesthood preserved the faith, the language, and the identity of the Serbian nation. The Church has endured persecution, martyrdom, and destruction, and has emerged each time renewed by the grace of God.

The Serbian Orthodox presence in America began with the great wave of immigration in the early twentieth century. Serbian immigrants, miners, steelworkers, and laborers, gathered together in cities across the industrial heartland to establish parishes, build churches, and keep the faith alive in a new land. The parish community of Saint Sava was founded in 1909, making it one of the oldest Serbian Orthodox communities in the United States. For over a century, this parish has served as a spiritual home for generations of faithful, a place of worship, community, and continuity with the ancient faith of the Serbian people.

If you are visiting an Orthodox church for the first time, or if you have been quietly drawn to the Orthodox faith for some time, we welcome you warmly and with open hearts. The Orthodox Church does not see herself as one option among many but as the fullness of the Christian faith, and yet she receives all who come to her doors with patience, gentleness, and love.

The path to becoming Orthodox typically begins simply: by attending the Divine Liturgy and other services, by observing, by listening, and by praying. Orthodoxy is not primarily an intellectual system to be studied from the outside, it is a living faith to be experienced from within. We encourage inquirers to come to church, to stand in the presence of God, and to let the beauty and truth of the worship speak to the heart.

Those who wish to pursue the faith more deeply are invited to meet with the parish priest for conversation, questions, and guidance. In time, the inquirer enters a period of formal catechesis, a catechumenate, during which the foundations of Orthodox belief and practice are explored in greater depth: the Creed, the Holy Mysteries, the liturgical life, prayer, fasting, and the spiritual life. This is not a crash course but a gradual journey, undertaken at a pace that allows genuine understanding and interior transformation.

Reception into the Orthodox Church is accomplished through Baptism (for those who have not been baptized in the name of the Holy Trinity) or through Chrismation (for those coming from certain other Christian traditions whose baptism the Church recognizes). In either case, the moment of reception is a profound and joyful occasion, a new birth, a homecoming, a beginning.

We invite you to take the first step. Attend a Sunday Divine Liturgy at Saint Sava Cathedral (Sundays at 10:00 AM), introduce yourself after the service, or reach out to our parish priest, Fr. Dragan Vuković, at o.draganvukovic@gmail.com. Whatever your background, whatever your questions, you are welcome here.