The Holy Trinity: Belief in one God in three distinct, co-equal, and indivisible persons: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

The Incarnation & Resurrection: The belief that Jesus Christ is fully God and fully man, whose death and resurrection conquered sin and death.

The material world is not a barrier to God but a vehicle for His presence. Because Christ took on flesh, matter itself has been united to divinity and made capable of bearing grace. Water, bread, oil, and light are not mere symbols — they are genuine meeting points between God and man.

Creation is inherently iconic and liturgical. It exists to be offered back to God, transfigured, drawn into divine life. To see the world sacramentally is to see it as it truly is: transparent to the energies of God and destined for glory.

Virtue is not a checklist of moral rules but the gradual transformation of the whole person into the likeness of Christ. It is the fruit of cooperation between human effort and divine grace, worked out through prayer, fasting, and life in the Church. The virtues are not abstract ideals but living qualities that become real in us as we are conformed to the image of God in which we were made. To grow in virtue is to grow in freedom — not the freedom to do whatever we wish, but the deeper freedom of becoming who we truly are: partakers of the divine nature, oriented fully toward the Good, the True, and the Beautiful, and radiating that beauty outward into the world.

The Mission of the Orthodox Church in America, the local autocephalous Orthodox Church, is to be faithful in fulfilling the commandment of Christ to “Go into all the world and make disciples of all Nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all [things that He has] commanded” so that all people may be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth

Holy Tradition is the fullness of divine revelation as received, preserved, and handed down through the Holy Spirit from the Apostles to every generation. It encompasses the Holy Scriptures, the Ecumenical Councils, the writings of the Church Fathers, the Divine Liturgy, the Canons, and the life of prayer and worship. Holy Tradition is known as the life of the Holy Spirit in the Church