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Continuity vs Reformation
Besides the unfortunate schism which took place, both churches co-existed. In the tenth century, the people of Russia and Eastern Europe embraced the Orthodox Faith. But by the Fifteenth century almost all Orthodox lands fell to the Moslems (i.e., the Ottoman Turks). The Roman Catholic Church continued to grow and spread through its missionary efforts in North and South America. The Orthodox Church, due to its subjugation to the Moslem Turks, was unable to do this. This perhaps, from a theological standpoint, was a blessing in disguise; for the Orthodox Christians were quite adamant in retaining the faith, teachings and traditions of their ancestors who in turn had received them unchanged and in complete harmony with the faith and teachings of the Apostles of our Lord and their successors.
This was not so in the West. The Roman Catholic Church had undergone certain theological changes due to the age of Speculation & Enlightenment, the Protestant Reformation and the Counter-Reformation which eventually led to separations within and from the Roman Catholic Church. These changes in the West as late as the sixteenth century gave birth to the: Lutheran, Methodist, Anglican and other Protestant churches. These "reformations" and thereby changes in church doctrine never affected the Orthodox Church; Orthodoxy maintained its unbroken historical and theological connection to the New Testament Church.
The Orthodox Faith
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