Eastern Orthodox Christianity
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49 free Eastern Orthodox Christianity trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
The Eastern Orthodox Church is the second-largest Christian body on earth, about 220 million people, and it runs on a model most Western readers find unfamiliar: no pope, fifteen self-governing churches, and a patriarch in Istanbul who is first among equals but commands none of them. Its story runs from the seven ecumenical councils through the excommunications of 1054, the sack of Constantinople in 1204, the fall of the city in 1453 and Moscow's claim to be the Third Rome. These 49 questions cover the doctrine and the texture: why the Virgin Mary is called Theotokos, what an iconostasis separates, why the Russian cross has a slanted bar, which council ended iconoclasm, who translated the liturgy for the Slavs, and why Mount Athos admits no women. There are modern questions too, on the 1965 lifting of the anathemas, the 2018 Moscow–Constantinople break, the Old Believers and the Old Calendarists, and the Green Patriarch who has to be a Turkish citizen. Every answer is cited to a page we checked and each explanation adds one more detail. Play it solo or print it for a study group.
30 of 49 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01What official name does the Eastern Orthodox Church use for itself in its liturgical texts?
Orthodox Catholic Church
Orthodox Catholic Church. After the split of 1054 each side went on calling itself 'Catholic', and 'Eastern Orthodox' is the everyday label that avoids confusion with Rome.
Q 02Eastern Orthodox Christians form the majority in which of these central and eastern European countries?
Romania
Romania. Its church was proclaimed independent of Constantinople in 1865, but the patriarch took another twenty years to recognise it.
Q 03The Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople holds which standing in relation to the other Orthodox church leaders?
First among equals
First among equals. Unlike the pope, he holds a primacy of honour only and has no authority over the other self-governing churches.
Q 04How many ecumenical councils does the Eastern Orthodox Church recognise?
Seven
Seven. The Catholic Church went on to count twenty-one, but the Orthodox accept only the councils held while East and West were still one church, the last of them in 787.
Q 05What do historians call the 1054 break between the churches of Rome and Constantinople?
The East–West Schism
The East–West Schism. The excommunications of 1054 named only a handful of men, and although they were formally lifted in 1965 the two churches remain divided.
Q 06Why is the excommunication that papal legates laid on Hagia Sophia's altar in 1054 often judged invalid?
The pope had already died
The pope had already died. Leo IX had been dead for three months when Cardinal Humbert acted, so his envoys arguably spoke for no one, and the patriarch excommunicated them in return.
Q 07Which Patriarch of Constantinople was excommunicated by the papal legates in 1054?
Michael I Cerularius
Michael I Cerularius. He had refused even to meet the legates, and after their bull he convened a synod that excommunicated them in turn.
Q 08Which type of bread did Constantinople attack the Latins for using in the Eucharist?
Unleavened
Unleavened. Greek writers branded Westerners 'Azymites', from the Greek for 'without leaven', a charge they first raised only in the eleventh century.
Q 09The dispute over which clause added to the Nicene Creed helped divide the Greek and Latin churches?
Filioque
Filioque. The Latin word means 'and from the Son', and the East objected that the Western church had added it on its own to a creed the whole church shared.
Q 10Pope Paul VI and which Ecumenical Patriarch nullified the anathemas of 1054 in 1965?
Athenagoras I
Athenagoras I. At his own initiative he met Paul VI in Jerusalem in 1964, the first such meeting in more than five centuries, and the lifting of the anathemas grew out of it.
Q 11Pope John Paul II expressed sorrow for the sack of Constantinople carried out during which event?
The Fourth Crusade
The Fourth Crusade. Its army had set out to recover Jerusalem by way of Egypt, but in 1204 it turned on the greatest Christian city of the East instead.
Q 12What does the Greek title Theotokos, given to the Virgin Mary, mean?
God-bearer
God-bearer. Nestorius wanted Mary called only 'Christ-bearer', so defending the older title became a way of insisting that the child she carried was truly God.
Q 13Which 431 council affirmed Mary as Theotokos against the teachings of Nestorius?
Ephesus
Q 21Which Orthodox sacrament, given straight after baptism, confers the gift of the Holy Spirit by anointing with holy oil?
Chrismation
Chrismation. The Catholic West delays confirmation for years, but the Orthodox anoint even infants at once, so a newly baptised baby can already receive communion.
Q 22What is the Orthodox term for humanity's calling to become like God?
Theosis
Theosis. A classic early formula puts the idea this way: the Son of God became man so that we might become god.
Q 23From which ranks are Orthodox bishops almost always chosen?
The monastics
The monastics. A married man may be ordained a priest, but bishops have had to be single or widowed since the sixth century, so the monasteries supply most of them.
Ephesus. The patriarch of Alexandria opened the council before the bishops most sympathetic to Nestorius had arrived, and they answered by holding a rival synod of their own.
Q 14Which Roman emperor convoked the First Council of Nicaea in 325?
Constantine
Constantine. He was still unbaptised when he summoned the bishops to settle the quarrel over Arius, and he accepted baptism only on his deathbed twelve years later.
Q 15Which empress regent called the Second Council of Nicaea in 787 to restore the veneration of icons?
Irene of Athens
Irene of Athens. Ten years later she had her own son, the emperor, blinded and then reigned alone.
Q 16What is the screen separating the nave from the sanctuary in an Orthodox church called?
Iconostasis
Iconostasis. It began as a low rail with no images on it at all and grew over the centuries into a wall that hides the altar from the congregation.
Q 17Which medieval icon painter created the celebrated Trinity, showing three angels seated around a table?
Andrei Rublev
Andrei Rublev. Russian painters of his day did not sign their work, so the Trinity is one of the very few works that can be credited to him with any certainty.
Q 18On the Russian Orthodox cross, what does the small top crossbar represent?
Pilate's sign above Christ's head
Pilate's sign above Christ's head. It read 'Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews', and when the chief priests asked Pilate to reword it he refused.
Q 19By what name do Orthodox Christians usually call Easter, their greatest feast?
Pascha
Pascha. It usually falls later than Western Easter, because the Orthodox still work out the date by the older calendar that most of the world has dropped.
Q 20What are the sacraments called in Eastern Orthodoxy?
Holy mysteries
Holy mysteries. The habit of counting them off in a fixed list was borrowed from the Catholic West, and the older Orthodox view treats far more of church life as sacramental.
Q 24In Orthodox churches, the priest gives laypeople the bread and wine of communion together using which utensil?
A spoon
A spoon. The consecrated bread is placed in the chalice with the wine, so every communicant, baptised infants included, receives both at once.
Q 25On which two weekdays do Orthodox Christians traditionally fast for most of the year?
Wednesday and Friday
Wednesday and Friday. The first recalls the betrayal by Judas and the second the Crucifixion, so each ordinary week quietly retells the Passion.
Q 26Which missionary brothers did the Byzantine emperor Michael III send to the Slavs of Moravia in 863?
Cyril and Methodius
Cyril and Methodius. To put the liturgy into the Slavs' own tongue they devised the Glagolitic alphabet, and the later script that carries Cyril's name grew out of their work.
Q 27Orthodox services in Russia, Serbia and Bulgaria have traditionally been sung in which liturgical language?
Church Slavonic
Church Slavonic. It grew out of the ninth-century translations made for newly converted Slavs and went on to leave a deep mark on the modern Russian literary language.
Q 28Which grand prince of Kiev had his people baptised into Byzantine Christianity in 988?
Vladimir the Great
Vladimir the Great. The chronicle tale has him sending envoys to weigh Islam, Judaism and Latin Christianity before choosing the Byzantine rite for the beauty of its worship.
Q 29After Constantinople fell in 1453, Russian churchmen began to call their own capital by which title?
The Third Rome
The Third Rome. The monk Philotheus of Pskov gave the idea its classic form: two Romes have fallen, the third stands, and a fourth there will not be.
Q 30Ivan III of Russia married Sophia Palaiologina, a niece of which last Byzantine emperor?
Constantine XI
Constantine XI. He died when Constantinople fell in 1453, and the match was proposed by a cardinal at the papal court, where the orphaned Sophia had grown up as a ward.