The original Christian Church, founded by our Lord Jesus Christ, was well established in the first centuries. All of its five major centers, Constantinople, Antioch, Jerusalem, Alexandria, and Rome, each had its own Patriarch, or first bishop among equals. These churches, referred to as a Pentarchy, from the Greek penta - 5, archia - rule, thus the Rule of 5, were united for more than 1,000 years. From Ethiopia to Ireland, as far as parts of India, the Church was united under one God, one Faith, one Holy Spirit, one theology, one Church!
  In 1054, the Great Schism divided Rome from the other four Patriarchates mentioned above. (Time line). The other four major centers began to be called the Orthodox, meaning "right-worship," Christians, while Rome doubled down on its supremacy by calling itself the Roman Catholic Church, Catholic meaning "universal," thus claiming that only through the rulership of the Roman Papacy was the Universal Church to be found. It's interesting to note, however, that out of love for their fellow man and patience in Christ the other four Patriachates still maintained some ties to the Roman Church, speaking the truth in love by chiding them for their heresies of the filioque, believing that the Holy Spirit comes both from the Father and the Son, Papal supremacy, which is the claim that the Pope is the head pontiff without equals, and various other liturgical abuses still found today in the Roman church. This changed in 1204, when Roman Catholic mercenaries, knights, and even armed monks and priests, stormed the city of Constantinople, stealing vast amounts of wealth, killing Orthodox priests and layman, and not even sparing women and nuns from defilement. After this, the Orthodox Churches woke up to the spiritual delusion that the Papacy was under and officially cut themselves off.
  Many changes took place in the west that eventually brought about another division, the Protestant movement, which originated in the 1500s in the fractured princedoms of the Holy Roman Empire, in what is now modern day Germany. Sadly, in the West, so many things about Christianity have been changed and lost, with no sign on the horizon of a return to the Truth that Christ preached, which only the Orthodox Church has today.
  Meanwhile, throughout these tumultuous periods of religious change and upheaval in the West, the rest of the Christian world, the Orthodox Church, has remained steadfast in its traditional beliefs in the face of invasion by Muslims, persecutions by non-Orthodox Christians, and even in the grip of the satanic powers of communist revolutionaries. We still venerate the saints and their icons, receive the Holy Body and Blood of Christ at the ancient Liturgy, confess our sins to our confessor priests, and try to live every day in a state of repentance, awaiting the time when we will inevitably meet our Lord Jesus Christ, fearful of our seemingly unending sins, yet hoping in His boundless mercy.
  As it's not possible to explain nearly 2,000 years of the Orthodox Church and her history in just a few paragraphs, please feel free to contact us @ info@cullmanorthodox.com

  America has only recently begun to lose its grip on its traditionally Christian roots. While many like to say that many of the founding fathers were agnostic, perhaps even part of anti-Christian organizations such as the Mason's lodge, it is without a doubt that the vast majority of America was Christian.
  At the same time, the Orthodox Church came to North America first in the late 18th century through what was then Russian owned Alaska (the first American converts to Orthodoxy were native Alaskans). While the missionary efforts of St. Herman of Alaska and St. Innocent of Moscow were by no means small endeavors, the European colonists would not have the chance to encounter Orthodoxy until around the late 19th, early 20th century, when mass influxes of immigrants from Europe arrived for better work opportunities, including from many Orthodox countries. There are records of American Christians converting to the Orthodox Church in these times, but they are nothing close to what we see today.
  Why is that? It's hard to say, but one can theorize that with the steady decline of Christiniaty in America, that is the traditional Protestant and Catholic denominations, a thirst for the truth, the fullness of the truth, arose. We are living in a world that cares for nothing else other than comforts, for pleasure, for self-love and hatred of fellow man, and unfortunately the other Christian organizations in America, as with the rest of the world, proved unable even by their best efforts to stop their "traditional" belief systems from being modified into something more pleasing to modern man and his fickle ways.
  During all this time, the fledgling Church in America has deepened its roots, it has stood in the face of the materialistic philosophy of our society that pampers the body but oppresses the soul, and continues to stand, victoriously. This is just a theory of the rector's to answer this question, but perhaps the most correct answer is also the most simplest: we have not heard of God's true Church until now, because only now are we ready for it, only now has He opened our hearts and our minds to see the futility of this world. The doors of salvation are opening to the American people. Thank God!

No, while the Orthodox Church always respected the Roman See as "first among equals," and in fact we venerate many pre-schism Popes as Saints, like Pope St. Leo the Great, and Pope St. Gregory the Great. The Orthodox Church does not interpret Matthew 16:18, "And I say also unto thee, that thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build My church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it," the same as the Romans do. The 'rock' we interpret here is the faith that Simon Peter had when he declared, "You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God," and not Peter "Cephas, the Rock," himself. This is further proved by the events of the Council in Jerusalem, which occurred in the year 48 A.D. and is recorded in the Acts of the Apostles. This council was addressed over the issue of whether Gentile converts to Christianity should be circumcised. This council was headed not by Peter, 1st bishop of Rome, but by James, the first bishop of Jerusalem. Why? Because the council occurred on his canonical territory, Jerusalem. It is clear that the Apostle St. James, the Brother of the Lord not by Blood, spoke authoritatively at this council, concluding it with the exhortation that the Gentiles not be circumcised, and that the elders and bishops of the council instead exhort them not to eat things offered to by idols and from sexual immorality. There are various other 'proofs' for the illegitimacy of the Papacy's claim to supremacy, but it is enough to say that the Orthodox Church has Christ as their head pontiff, keeping in mind the words of that great 6th century Pope St. Gregory, “Whosoever calls himself, or desires to be called, Universal Priest, is in his elation the precursor of antichrist.” How, then, does the Orthodox Church ever accomplish anything, one might ask?
  We must remember that the Orthodox Church does not need to go through constant changes to "keep up" with society as other Christian organizations do, but that all of the Patriarchs and heads of other smaller autocephalous churches such as Cyprus, Greece, and so on, meet in occasions to defend the faith and uphold the truth. These councils are called Ecumenical Councils, where the entire Church meets to pray that the Holy Spirit guide them to the preservation of the faith, rather than to the modification of it as we have seen with the post-schism councils of the Romans. One should also keep in mind that Patriarchs are simply bishops who are in a higher position of administrative authority, they cannot perform any special sacraments that other bishops "below" them cannot already do. They are the necessary administrative component of the Church on Earth, which is comprised of sinners struggling for repentance, and thus needs human organizations to be run efficiently, so long as these organizations are ran with the help of the Holy Spirit.

There are a few things that differentiate the Orthodox worship service from the other Christian sects.
  Firstly is the length, there are few services that are shorter than an hour. This is not done because we value the length of prayers like Pharisees, but because the content of the prayers that must be said are quite long in of themselves, and that it often takes a bit of time to get the heart into the right 'mood' for prayer. Coming into an Orthodox church, whether you're a zealous baptized Orthodox Christian or a curious visitor off the street, it sometimes takes time to immerse yourself in the services due to the very distracted lives we live today. We pray to God for mercy, for repentance, we glorify Him, we thank Him, we praise Him, and we ask for His mercy to be found on all of our friends, enemies, and every single human soul in His creation which we have destroyed through our sins and selfishness.
  Secondly is the aesthetic qualities of the Church. Candles, incense, and an Old Testament-derived desire to beautify our churches. We have icons both of saints and of Christ, which we venerate, kissing them with love and asking for their help. To the icons of the saints we kiss them and ask for their help to live the lives they lived, which were pleasing to God, "the prayer of a holy man availeth much," James 5:16, and since they still live and can hear our prayers through God's mercy, "But concerning the dead, that they rise, have you not read in the book of Moses, in the burning bush passage, how God spoke to him, saying, ‘I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? He is not the God of the dead, but the God of the living." Mark 12:26-27. When we kiss the icons of Christ or icons that represent the Holy Trinity (as the Holy Trinity is bodiless and cannot be imaged except through representations, such as the Three Angels that visited Abraham), we worship him and ask Him for mercy and for help in our various struggles. Thus, we ask our fellow humans who have found God's mercy for their prayers, and we worship God and ask Him for mercy as well.
  Thirdly, the singing. No musical instruments are allowed in an Orthodox Church, only the voice, which has the God-given properties to pluck at a man's soul. God, in His wisdom, knew that if the Church was externally dull, if her various dogmas and soul-saving instructions were proclaimed like a teacher reading from a textbook, then man would not be moved. Thus, some of the most soul saving instructions in the Church are sung. One only needs to look up "Orthodox Church singing," and even if they can't understand the language, they can feel the words. Some examples of Church singing: "My soul, my soul, arise! Why are you sleeping?" sung in the First week of Lent, Rejoice O Bethany, sung also during Lent, on the feast of the Raising of Lazarus, or the famous rendition of Psalm 50 sang by Aramaic chanters, all of which can be found on YouTube.
  There are various other beautiful practices in our churches, of which one can only experience when he visits a church for services. Come and see!