Do Eastern Orthodox Christians actually believe in the tenets of their faith...

Do Eastern Orthodox Christians actually believe in the tenets of their faith, or are they just a nationalistic meme religion like Judaism and Shinto?

We believe in the Nicene Creed like all proper Christians.
>nationalistic meme
Orthodox Church is the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church.

>look at my magician robes and pimp hat
>I got some flags and our books are golden
>please take me seriously
It's already strange to see the priest dress up in a catholic church, but this shit is just comedy. If you have to accept it because it's part of your culture, okay, but how could you take this serious as an outsider?

In post communist states like less than 5% of self professed orthodox christians go to church at least once a month and many have basically no knowledge of their religion, so yeah
I imagine the situation is better in Greece and the oriental churches

Romanian here, can confirm. 90% of the population identifies as Orthodox yet they are the most petty, vengeful, and hypocritical people you'll meet.

They're just devolving int some shamanistic/transactional type christianity anyway and they're taking the church down with them since the church only cares about money.

...

This is what byzantine nobility used to dress like you asshat. It's a unique look into Early Christian and Late Roman culture.

...

You don't dress up like that without a few levels in priest.

don't diss the robes nigga

You mean modern people? I've heard Russia described as as 'religious conservatives who have never been to church'. It's a nationalistic meme religion if there ever was one.

russian orthodoxy have been controlled by the state since peter the great

How could you take le eternal car salesman preaching conspiracy theories seriously or the Vaticanist cleric with his yarmulke on?

The attire would still pretty ornate though. Vestments are inherent to all religious traditions across the globe and are part of what distinguishes them from the ordinary world and defines culture. Only voluntarily poor ascetic orders deliberately take up a more austere attire for reasons relative to their spiritual practice.

I doubt most baptized Catholics attend church regularly either. Low religious service attendance is a worldwide phenomenon even happening in Islam where lonely old guys are sometimes the ones regularly going to the mosque and religiosity has famously declined in eastern Asia.

Like pretty much any established religion, most of the nominal adherents don't actually either know or believe Orthodox theology, piety, and practice. They just follow it because it's their culture, or, as you said, for nationalistic or political purposes. If you truly believe that, say, 80-90% of Poles are faithful, practicing Roman Catholics, you are a fucking idiot. If you believe that 75% of Russians are actually Orthodox, I have a bridge to sell you. Hell, America was supposedly founded by the Calvinistic Puritans, and I'd be very surprised if there were more than half a million actual Calvinists in ALL of North America.

Eastern Orthodox services look somewhat more institutional when compared to Oriental Orthodox services. I think I've read somewhere that there was a matter of contention during the schisms between the local vernacular churches and at the time, the perceivedly lofty "Greek" church.

Their worship is beautiful, I've never been brought so close to tears just gazing at the faithful during divine liturgy. It is a beautiful faith, but as with any religion it can and probably is used for nationalistic reasons. But it is truly something to be proud of.

Yes

T. Orthodox

I have an orthodox friend who is very devout, along with his entire family (his father is a priest). This is just his group in the U.S. though: The Orthodox are fairly decentralized and it is hard to judge them as a whole

>Russians were Christian mortalists all along
Based

Hello fellow REAL Christian, tell you what, I'll talk to the pope and see if he can tone down the whole Rome's Universal Jurisdiction if you guys agree that we have a right to communion with unleavened bread, you leavened bread eating bast... I mean, fellow christians.