Understanding the Anglican Orthodox Church Explained

If you typed "Anglican Orthodox Church" into a search bar hoping to find either the Church of England or the Eastern Orthodox Church, you've actually landed on neither. Almost nobody tells you that plainly, so let me say it from the start: the Anglican Orthodox Church is an Anglican jurisdiction, founded in the United States in 1963, that uses the word "Orthodox" to describe its loyalty to older Anglican formularies, not its membership in the communion of Eastern Orthodox churches that trace their life back to the apostles.

What strikes me about this confusion is how understandable it is. A church with bishops, a prayer book, reverent worship, and the word "orthodox" in its title looks, to an honest searcher, like it should be the ancient thing. But in our tradition the decisive question is never only "does this look old and reverent?" It is "is this church in sacramental and doctrinal communion with the Orthodox Church?" A congregation can have vestments, candles, and a bishop in a tall hat and still not be part of what Orthodox Christians mean by the Church.

I was raised Catholic and came to Orthodoxy later in life, so I understand the pull of a tradition that feels ancient and settled. What I want to offer you here is not a scolding comparison but an honest map: what the Anglican Church is, what Orthodoxy actually means by "Orthodox," and where the real differences and real common ground lie.

Quick Answer: The Anglican Orthodox Church is an Anglican denomination, not a part of the Eastern Orthodox Church; it uses "Orthodox" to mean faithful to traditional Anglican doctrine, while Eastern Orthodoxy means something sacramentally and historically different.

In This Article:

• What is the Anglican Church and how did it begin?
• What does it mean for a church to be "Orthodox"?
• What are the key differences between the Anglican Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church?
• Do Anglicans pray the Hail Mary like Orthodox Christians honor the Theotokos?
• What is the Orthodox Church's teaching on LGBTQ issues?
• How does the Anglican Church's position on LGBTQ issues differ from Orthodoxy?
• Can Anglicans become Eastern Orthodox Christians?
• Father Victor's Perspective
• Common Misconceptions About the Anglican Orthodox Church

TL;DR: Key Takeaways

• The Anglican Orthodox Church is an Anglican body founded in 1963; it has no canonical tie to the Eastern Orthodox Church.
• Orthodox identity rests on apostolic succession, the Ecumenical Councils, and Eucharistic communion among canonical bishops, not on liturgical style alone.
• Anglicans and Orthodox Christians share Scripture, baptism, and historic episcopal language, but differ on authority, Marian devotion, and moral teaching.
• An Anglican inquirer can enter the Eastern Orthodox Church through a canonical parish, but the path is pastoral and personal, not a simple paperwork transfer.

What is the Anglican Church and how did it begin?

The Anglican Church grew out of the Church of England's break from papal jurisdiction in the sixteenth century, under Henry VIII and the Tudor monarchs who followed him, shaped by the English prayer-book tradition. "Anglican" today describes churches historically or doctrinally tied to that English reform, together worldwide in what is called the Anglican Communion.

It's worth remembering that England's Christian story began centuries earlier, and this is where East and West still share real ground. In a seminar paper I wrote on St. Gregory the Great, I traced how, around 595 or 596, Pope Gregory the Great sent roughly forty monks from a Roman monastery, led by St. Augustine, to preach the Gospel among the Anglo-Saxons who had overrun the old Christian Celtic communities of Britain. King Æthelberht of Kent received the mission with his Christian wife Queen Bertha supporting them, and Augustine became the first Archbishop of Canterbury. The Venerable Bede later called Gregory the Great "the Apostle of the English." Long before the Reformation, then, the English Church was planted by a bishop whom both East and West still honor as a saint, which is one reason Anglican and Orthodox worship can feel oddly familiar to each other even centuries later.

The organization most people meet when they search this phrase, the Anglican Orthodox Church founded by James Parker Dees in 1963, attached itself to the 1928 Book of Common Prayer, the Thirty-Nine Articles, and older Anglican homilies, standing apart from more recent currents within the Anglican Communion. Similar bodies include the Orthodox Anglican Communion and various jurisdictions with parishes in places such as Nigeria and North America, and all of them describe themselves as "orthodox" in the sense of faithful to historic Anglican doctrine, not in the sense of belonging to Eastern Orthodoxy.

What does it mean for a church to be "Orthodox"?

In Eastern Christian usage, Orthodox means right-believing and right-worshipping in unbroken continuity with the apostolic Church: one faith, received through Scripture, the Ecumenical Councils, the Fathers, and the sacramental life of canonically united bishops. It is a theological claim, not a synonym for traditional, reverent, or old-fashioned.

The New Testament itself describes the early Church this way. The apostles' first converts, we read, “And they continued stedfastly in the apostles’ doctrine and fellowship, and in breaking of bread, and in prayers.” (Acts 2:42, KJV). That is not a description of individuals who happen to share private convictions; it is a visible community gathered around shared doctrine and shared sacraments. St. Paul makes the same point even more sharply when he asks the Corinthians whether the cup of blessing and the bread we break are not a participation in the Body and Blood of Christ, since “The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ? For we being many are one bread, and one body: for we are all partakers of that one bread.” (1 Corinthians 10:16-17, KJV). And St. Paul tells Timothy that the Church is “But if I tarry long, that thou mayest know how thou oughtest to behave thyself in the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth.” (1 Timothy 3:15, KJV), a visible, historical reality, not an invisible federation of like-minded believers.

When I studied Archbishop Filaret (Gumilevskij) of Chernigov for my doctoral dissertation, I came across his own definition of the Church, written in the introduction to his nineteenth-century history of the Russian Church. He insisted that the Church, as a divine institution, does not belong to the category of changeable things; yet the earthly Church, he wrote, consists of an actual gathering of people who are illumined by grace but who only gradually come to grasp the truth of Christian revelation and appropriate Christ's holiness through practical effort. Filaret's point still holds: Orthodoxy is not a claim that Orthodox people are flawless, but a claim about where the fullness of apostolic faith and sacramental life concretely resides, inherited through councils and bishops in communion with one another rather than invented or reorganized by any single founder. Related: How to Become Orthodox: A Journey Beyond Belief.

What are the key differences between the Anglican Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church?

The two traditions share Trinitarian faith, Scripture, baptism, and historic episcopal language, but they differ on where final doctrinal authority rests, how the Eucharist is understood, how Mary is honored, and how councils and moral teaching are received. Anglicanism is also far from uniform internally, which makes broad comparisons tricky.

St. Paul's image of the Church as “There is one body, and one Spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your calling; One Lord, one faith, one baptism, One God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all.” (Ephesians 4:4-6, KJV) helps explain why Orthodoxy treats unity as something visible and doctrinal rather than simply emotional or historical. A table makes the practical differences easier to hold in view.

Anglican Orthodox Church vs Eastern Orthodox Church: Key Differences

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As St. Irenaeus of Lyons argues in Against Heresies, the true faith is recognizable by its continuity with the apostles' own teaching, handed down through bishops in unbroken succession rather than reinvented by each generation or each new jurisdiction. That is precisely the test a name alone cannot satisfy.

Do Anglicans pray the Hail Mary like Orthodox Christians honor the Theotokos?

Some Anglicans, especially in Anglo-Catholic parishes, pray forms of the Hail Mary, while others give Mary very little devotional attention; Orthodox Christians everywhere honor Mary as the Theotokos, "God-bearer," through hymns, icons, feasts, and prayers that ask her intercession without ever worshipping her.

The biblical foundation is shared ground: the angel's greeting "Hail, full of grace" and Elizabeth's cry "Blessed are you among women," together with Mary's own prophecy that "all generations will call me blessed" (Luke 1:28, 42-49), are Scripture before they belong to any single tradition. Orthodox hymnography builds on this directly, especially in the Akathist Hymn and in services addressed to "Rejoice, O Virgin Theotokos." As St. John of Damascus explains in On the Divine Images, veneration offered to Mary and the saints is categorically different from worship, which belongs to God alone; we honor the vessel because of the One who filled it.

In a paper I wrote on the history of Athos, I noted how deeply this honor runs in Orthodox monastic memory: the mountain's oldest communities preserve traditions that the Mother of God herself visited and blessed the peninsula, which is why Athonite monks still call it her garden. That is devotion, not worship, and the distinction matters for anyone comparing Roman Catholic, Anglican, and Orthodox Marian prayer, since the wording and setting differ even where the underlying biblical honor is the same.

What is the Orthodox Church's teaching on LGBTQ issues?

The Orthodox Church teaches that every person bears the image of God and deserves dignity, patience, and compassion, while also holding, through Scripture and Tradition, that sexual intimacy belongs within marriage between a man and a woman. These two convictions are meant to be held together, not played against each other. Learn more: What Is the Difference Between Orthodox Christian and Roman.

St. Paul's letters, including his teaching to the Corinthians and to Timothy on sexual ethics (1 Corinthians 6:9-11; 1 Timothy 1:8-11), are read by the Church alongside the wider biblical witness on marriage, repentance, and the possibility of transformation in Christ, never as grounds for contempt. I will not pretend this teaching is easy for everyone to hear in our current culture, and pastoral tone genuinely varies among Orthodox clergy and jurisdictions. What stays constant across Orthodoxy is the call to chastity according to one's state in life, addressed to unmarried heterosexual people, married couples, monastics, and clergy alike, not singled out for one group.

How does the Anglican Church's position on LGBTQ issues differ from Orthodoxy?

There is no single worldwide Anglican position: some provinces hold the traditional teaching on marriage, others bless same-sex unions or ordain clergy in same-sex relationships, and still others have formally rejected those changes. Orthodoxy, across its various jurisdictions, has not adopted this kind of internal variation on marriage itself.

This is exactly why generalizing about "what Anglicans believe" on this question misleads more than it clarifies. A traditional Anglican parish may teach almost exactly what an Orthodox parish teaches on marriage, while another province in the same worldwide communion has moved in a different direction entirely. Orthodox Christians should resist painting every Anglican with the same brush, just as fairness requires not treating Orthodox moral teaching as hostility rather than as a received conviction about the shape of marriage.

Can Anglicans become Eastern Orthodox Christians?

Yes. An Anglican can be received into the Eastern Orthodox Church through a canonical parish, after a period of learning the Creed, Scripture, liturgy, and moral life of the Church, with the exact manner of reception decided by the local bishop according to the person's baptismal history.

This is where I want to be honest about what conversion actually is. It is not a denominational transfer, like changing a membership card from one institution to another. It is entry into a concrete way of life: fasting according to the Church's calendar, regular confession, preparation for Holy Communion, obedience to a parish priest, and participation in the Jesus Prayer and the daily rhythm of prayer that shapes Orthodox discipleship. Depending on the bishop's judgment, reception may involve a simple confession of faith, chrismation, or in some cases baptism; no inquirer should assume in advance which form applies to them, and the only reliable answer comes from speaking directly with a canonical Orthodox priest. Christ's own prayer, "that they may all be one... so that the world may believe" (John 17:20-23), is the horizon the Church keeps in view even here: unity is sought, but never apart from the apostolic faith it is meant to express.

Father Victor's Perspective

The more I have studied this topic, the more clearly I see that the deepest Orthodox difference from Anglican bodies using the word "Orthodox" is not about aesthetics at all. It is sacramental. Orthodoxy understands the Church as a Eucharistic communion whose visible boundaries matter because truth is embodied: in worship, in episcopal communion, in the confession shared by bishops gathered in council. A parish can copy vestments and candle stands and still not share in that communion.

I saw a version of this same confusion while researching Patriarch Tikhon and the Russian Church under Bolshevik persecution for a seminar paper. In the early 1920s a group calling itself the "Living Church," later the Renovationist movement, set itself up as an alternative church leadership, with state backing, while Patriarch Tikhon sat under arrest. These clergy kept Orthodox vestments, Orthodox buildings, and an Orthodox name, yet the faithful who had been misled by them, once they understood what had happened, returned to the Patriarchal Church with what Archbishop Hilarion Troitsky described as genuine relief. A name attached to a structure never settled, by itself, what that structure actually was in the eyes of the faithful; only communion with the canonical bishops did. I think of that history whenever I meet the modern confusion around the word "Orthodox" in an Anglican jurisdiction's title. The lesson is not new; it is simply being asked again in a different century. Read more: What Is the Difference Between Orthodox and Catholic?.

My seminar work on St. Gregory of Sinai taught me something similar from the other direction, through the history of hesychasm, the tradition of inner stillness and unceasing prayer that shaped Orthodox monasticism. Gregory did not invent a new theology when he revived this teaching on Mount Athos around 1300; he gathered and renewed a current of prayer going back through St. John Climacus to Evagrius and the desert fathers, centered on guarding the mind in the heart through the Jesus Prayer. That tradition cannot be adopted simply by borrowing its outward forms. It lives inside a concrete ascetical and doctrinal inheritance, carried forward generation by generation through actual spiritual fathers and actual monastic communities. Orthodoxy, in other words, is not conservative worship wearing Byzantine vestments; it is a received way of knowing God that only makes sense from inside the life it forms.

This is where I find real hope for honest seekers, including those who first arrive confused by a search result. Many people confuse "traditional Christianity" with "the Orthodox Church," assuming that anything reverent and old-looking must be the same thing Orthodox Christians mean by Orthodoxy. Tradition, in our understanding, is not nostalgia for older forms of worship. It is the living reception of the apostolic faith through prayer, ascesis, councils, and communion, something inherited rather than reconstructed. And so the real question for an Anglican inquirer is never "can I become Orthodox," framed as paperwork, but something closer to "am I ready to enter a concrete sacramental life," framed as obedience, fasting, confession, and belonging to a canonical parish under a canonical bishop. That is an invitation, not a requirement placed on anyone from outside; it is simply what the word has always meant from within.

Common Misconceptions About the Anglican Orthodox Church

• "The Anglican Orthodox Church is part of Eastern Orthodoxy." It is not. Anglican bodies using "Orthodox" in the name are Anglican jurisdictions. They may be sincere Christians with historic forms of worship, but in Eastern Orthodox terms they are a different communion entirely.
• "If a church has bishops and ancient-style liturgy, it must be Orthodox." Reverence matters, and it is worth noticing and respecting. But Orthodox identity also requires canonical communion, reception of the Ecumenical Councils, and doctrinal continuity with the Orthodox episcopate, none of which liturgical style alone can supply.
• "Anglican and Orthodox are basically the same except for culture and style." Anglo-Catholic worship can resemble Orthodox worship closely to a newcomer's eye, which is a meaningful bridge for conversation. It does not erase real differences in authority, Eucharistic theology, Marian devotion, and moral teaching.
• "Orthodox Christians worship Mary." We worship the Holy Trinity alone. We honor Mary as the Theotokos and ask her intercession as the most honored of the saints, because the more rightly the Church loves Christ, the more it also honors the woman through whom He truly became man.
• "The Hail Mary is purely Roman Catholic, so Anglicans and Orthodox have nothing like it." The biblical greeting to Mary belongs to all Christians. Traditions receive and pray it differently, and some Anglicans use Marian prayer while others do not, but the source text in Luke's Gospel is shared.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is there an Anglican Orthodox Church?

Yes, there is an actual denomination by that name, founded in Statesville, North Carolina in 1963 by James Parker Dees. It is an Anglican body attached to the 1928 Book of Common Prayer and the Thirty-Nine Articles, and it has no canonical relationship to the Eastern Orthodox Church.

Is Anglican considered Orthodox?

No, not in the Eastern Orthodox sense of the word. Anglicanism developed through the English Reformation and does not share full sacramental and doctrinal communion with the Orthodox Church, even where individual parishes hold worship and beliefs that feel close to Orthodox practice.

Do Anglicans say the Hail Mary?

Some do and some do not. Anglo-Catholic Anglicans often pray forms of the Hail Mary and honor Mary with real devotion, while many other Anglicans give her a much smaller place in personal and parish prayer, reflecting the internal diversity of the Anglican tradition.

Is LGBTQ allowed in Orthodox Christianity?

Every person, regardless of orientation, is welcome to attend, pray, and seek pastoral care in the Orthodox Church, and is called to the same dignity and compassion as anyone else. The Church's received teaching reserves sexual intimacy to marriage between a man and a woman and calls every Christian to chastity according to their state in life.

About the Author

Father Victor Meshko is an Orthodox priest and theological advisor for Godfinder who serves at the Cathedral of the Holy New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia in Munich under the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad, Diocese of Berlin and Germany. He has been a priest since 2013 and holds a Doctorate in Theology (Dr. theol., 2022) from LMU Munich, where his research led to his published 2023 book Erzbischof Filaret (Gumilevskij) von Černigov und Nezin. His training also includes degrees in theology, philosophy, and psychology, equipping him to explain Orthodox doctrine with both historical depth and pastoral clarity.

Researched and written by Father Victor Meshko. AI tools were used during the research process.