East, Rome, and the Reformation — at a glance
“That they all may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You.”John 17:21
One church became three great streams: the East and Rome parted in 1054 over papal authority and a word added to the Creed; the Reformation broke from Rome five centuries later over grace, works, and where final authority lies. The table below sets the three side by side on the questions where they genuinely differ — each position stated briefly and, as far as one cell allows, fairly.
| OrthodoxyThe Christian East | CatholicismRome | ProtestantismThe Reformation | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Authority | Scripture within Holy Tradition; the seven Ecumenical Councils. No single infallible head. | Scripture and Tradition interpreted by the Magisterium; the Pope infallible when defining ex cathedra. | Scripture alone (sola scriptura); creeds and councils honored but fallible. |
| Canon | The Septuagint Old Testament — 49 books (76 total), incl. 1 Esdras & 3 Maccabees. | 73 books; the deuterocanon affirmed at Trent. | 66 books; Old Testament follows the Hebrew canon, apocrypha set aside. |
| The Spirit | Proceeds from the Father — the Creed as the councils wrote it. | Proceeds from the Father and the Son (the filioque, added in the West). | Most confessions inherit the filioque from Rome without controversy. |
| Salvation | Theosis — lifelong healing and union with God; salvation as participation more than acquittal. | Sanctifying grace infused through the sacraments; faith formed by love, cooperating with grace. | Justification by faith alone; Christ’s righteousness imputed to the believer. |
| The Fall | Ancestral sin — inherited mortality and corruption, not inherited guilt. | Original sin as inherited guilt, washed away in baptism. | Inherited guilt and corruption — in the Reformed stream, total depravity. |
| Eucharist | Truly Christ’s Body and Blood — a mystery left undefined. | Transubstantiation, precisely defined in scholastic terms. | Ranges from real presence (Lutheran) to spiritual feeding (Reformed) to memorial (Zwingli). |
| The Saints | Mary the Theotokos, ever-virgin; the saints venerated and asked to intercede. | Same, plus defined dogmas: Immaculate Conception (1854) and Assumption (1950). | Saints honored as examples only; invocation rejected — one Mediator. |
| After Death | Prayers for the departed, but no developed purgatory; the state of the dead left largely a mystery. | Purgatory — purification of the saved before glory; indulgences. | Immediate judgment; no purgatory, no prayers for the dead. |
| Clergy | Married men may be priests; bishops are monastics; conciliar governance. | Celibate priesthood (Latin rite); papal supremacy over one global structure. | Varied polities — episcopal to congregational; many ordain without apostolic succession. |
| Worship | The Divine Liturgy, largely unchanged since Byzantium; icons venerated, statues not used. | The Mass; images and statues; the rite reformed over the centuries. | Centered on the sermon; forms range from high liturgy to free-church simplicity. |
Painted with a broad brush — every cell flattens centuries of nuance, and “Protestantism” is a family of confessions, not one voice.