Contemporary Orthodox catechisms and textbooks all affirm that the church recognizes seven mystēria (“sacraments”): baptism, chrismation, Communion, holy orders, penance, anointing of the sick, and marriage. Neither the liturgical book called Euchologion (“Prayer Book”), which contains the texts of the sacraments, nor the patristic tradition, however, formally limits the number of sacraments. They do not distinguish clearly between the “sacraments” and such acts as the blessing of water on Epiphany Day or the burial service or the service for the tonsuring of a monk that in the West are called sacramentalia. In fact, no council recognized by the Orthodox church ever defined the number of sacraments. It is only through the “Orthodox confessions” of the 17th century, which was directed against the Protestant Reformation (which recognized only two, baptism and Communion), that the number seven has been generally accepted.

The underlying sacramental theology of the Orthodox church is based, however, on the notion that the ecclesiastical community is the unique mystērion, of which the various sacraments are the normal expressions. The church interprets each sacramental act as a prayer of the entire ecclesiastical community, led by the bishop or his representative, and as God’s response, based upon Christ’s promise to send the Holy Spirit upon the church. These two aspects of the sacrament exclude both magic and legalism: they imply that the Holy Spirit is given to free people and call for their responses. In the mystērion of the church the participation of humans in God is effected through their “cooperation” or “synergy”; to make this participation possible once more is the goal of the Incarnation.

Architecture and iconography

Since the time of the Roman emperor Constantine I, Eastern Christianity has developed a variety of patterns in church architecture. The chief model was created when Emperor Justinian I completed the “great church” of Hagia Sophia in Constantinople in the 6th century. The architectural conception of that church consisted of erecting a huge round dome on top of the classical early Christian basilica. The dome was meant to symbolize the descent of heaven upon earth—i.e., the ultimate meaning of the eucharistic celebration.

The long Iconoclastic Controversy (725–843), during which the Orthodox theology of icons was fully developed, concerned itself primarily with the problem of the Incarnation; it was the direct continuation of the Christological debates of the 5th, 6th, and 7th centuries. The image of Christ, the incarnated God, became for the Eastern Christian a pictorial confession of faith: God was truly visible in the humanity of Jesus of Nazareth, and the saints—whose images surround that of Christ—are witnesses of the fact that the transfigured, “deified” humanity is accessible to those who believe in Christ. Departing from tridimensional images or statues, that were reminiscent of pagan idolatry, the Christian East developed a rich tradition of iconography. Portable icons—often painted on wood but also using mosaics with enamel techniques—are always kept in houses or public places. Among the icon painters, who never signed their work, there appeared several artists of genius. Most of them are unknown, but tradition and written documents have revealed the names of some, such as the famous 14th–15th-century Russian painter St. Andrey Rublyov.

The screen, or iconostasis, which separates the sanctuary from the nave in contemporary Orthodox churches is a rather late development. After the triumph of orthodoxy over iconoclasm (destruction of images) in 843, a new emphasis was placed upon the permanent revelatory role of images. The Incarnation implied that God had become man—i.e., fully visible and, thus, describable in his human nature. The images of Christ and the saints, who had manifested in their lives the new humanity transfigured by the grace of God, were placed everywhere in full evidence before the congregation. A contrast was thus suggested between the visible manifestation of God through the pictorial representation of Christ as man and his more perfect but mysterious and invisible presence in the Eucharist. The iconostasis, together with those parts of the liturgy that involve the closing and opening of the curtain before the altar, emphasizes the mysterious and “eschatological” (consummation of history) character of the eucharistic service. They suggest, however, that this mystery is not a secret and that the Christian is being introduced through the eucharistic liturgy into the very reality of divine life and of the kingdom to come, which was revealed when God became man.