Oriental Orthodox Churches
largest group of churches following Oriental Orthodoxy in full communion
The Oriental Orthodox Churches are a communion of Eastern Christian churches adhering to Miaphysite Christology. In 2020, it was estimated that the Oriental Orthodox Churches had 72 million members. The Oriental Orthodox Churches adhere to the Nicene Christian tradition. Oriental Orthodoxy is one of the oldest branches in Christianity.
As some of the oldest religious institutions in the world, the Oriental Orthodox Churches have played a prominent role in the history and culture of countries and regions such as Armenia, Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Sudan, the Levant, Iraq and the Malabar region of southern India. As autocephalous churches, their bishops are equal by virtue of episcopal ordination. Their doctrines recognize only the first three ecumenical councils as valid.
The Oriental Orthodox communion is composed of six autocephalous national churches: the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria; the Syriac Orthodox Church of Antioch and its constituent the Jacobite Syrian Christian Church in India; the Armenian Apostolic Church comprising the autocephalous Catholicosate of Etchmiadzin in Armenia and the Catholicosate of Cilicia in the Levant and of diaspora; the Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church, the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church, and the Eritrean Orthodox Tewahedo Church.
The Malabar Independent Syrian Church—based in India—and the British Orthodox Church in the UK are independent Oriental Orthodox churches, having formerly been part of one of the mainstream Oriental Orthodox churches.
Oriental Orthodox Christians consider themselves to be the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church founded by Jesus Christ in his Great Commission, and its bishops as the successors of Christ's apostles.
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Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 13, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q49377. The Library of Congress control number is sh86007873. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2020.
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This entry incorporates text from “Oriental Orthodox Churches” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.