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Orthodoxy () is adherence to a purported "correct" or otherwise mainstream- or classically accepted creed, especially in religion." orthodox." Dictionary.com. The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (4th ed.) Houghton-Mifflin Company. 2004. Retrieved March 03, 2008.
Orthodoxy within Christianity refers to acceptance of the doctrines defined by various creeds and ecumenical councils in Late antiquity, but different Churches accept different creeds and councils. Such differences of opinion have developed for numerous reasons, including language and cultural barriers. In the Christian world, Eastern Orthodoxy and Oriental Orthodoxy are sometimes referred to simply as "the Orthodox" or "Orthodoxy".
In some English-speaking countries, Jews who adhere to all the contemporarily-applicable commandments legislated in the Torah and Oral Torah are often called Orthodox Judaism. As this can include many Jews that may not necessarily identify with the term "Orthodox", such as many Masorti Jews, Jewish communities that consider themselves Orthodox are normally united through a diverse, but shared Hashkafa origin from the period of 1818-1821.
Sunni Islam is sometimes referred to as "Orthodox Islam".
Following the 1054 Great Schism, both the Western Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church continued to consider themselves uniquely orthodox and catholicity. Augustine wrote in On True Religion: "Religion is to be sought…only among those who are called Catholic or orthodox Christians, that is, guardians of truth and followers of right." Over time, the Western Church gradually identified with the "Catholic" label, and people of Western Europe gradually associated the "Orthodox" label with the Eastern Church (in some languages the "Catholic" label is not necessarily identified with the Western Church). This was in note of the fact that both Catholic and Orthodox were in use as ecclesiastical adjectives as early as the 2nd and 4th centuries respectively.
Much earlier, the earliest Oriental Orthodox Churches and Chalcedonian Christianity separated in two after the Council of Chalcedon (AD 451), because of several Christological differences. Since then, Oriental Orthodox Churches are maintaining the orthodox designation as a symbol of their theological traditions.
Lutheran orthodoxy was an era in the history of Lutheranism, which began in 1580 from the writing of the Book of Concord and ended at the Age of Enlightenment. Lutheran orthodoxy was paralleled by similar eras in Calvinism and tridentine Catholic Church after the Counter-Reformation.Preus, Robert. The Inspiration of Scripture: A Study of the Theology of the 17th Century Lutheran Dogmaticians. London: Oliver and Boyd, 1957. Lutheran scholasticism was a theological method that gradually developed during the era of Lutheran orthodoxy. Theologians used the neo-Aristotelian form of presentation, already popular in academia, in their writings and lectures. They defined the Lutheran faith and defended it against the of opposing parties. Reformed orthodoxy or Calvinist orthodoxy was an era in the history of Calvinism in the 16th to 18th centuries. Calvinist orthodoxy was paralleled by similar eras in Lutheranism and tridentine Catholic Church after the Counter-Reformation. Calvinist scholasticism or Reformed scholasticism was a theological method that gradually developed during the era of Calvinist Orthodoxy.Willem J. van Asselt, Introduction to Reformed Scholasticism, Grand Rapids, Reformation Heritage Books, 2011.Selderhuis, Herman J., ed. (2013). A Companion to Reformed Orthodoxy. Leiden: Brill.
Theology, it is chiefly defined by regarding the Torah, both Written Torah and Oral Torah, as being literally Revelation by God to Moses on the biblical Mount Sinai and faithfully transmitted without alteration ever since. The movement advocates a strict observance of halakha (Jewish Law), which is to be interpreted only according to received methods due to its divine character. Orthodoxy considers halakha as eternal – unchanged, unchanging, unchangable, and beyond historical influence – being applied differently to changing circumstances but basically static in essence. This viewpoint differs even from the opinions of other Jewish culture approaches, whose adherents – to varying degrees – may disagree in the existence of a separation between halakha and how it is interpreted and practiced, and/or acknowledge that halakha has shifted in some way, such as between the Pre-Temple Era, First and Second Temple Era, and the Post-Temple Era.
Orthodox Judaism is not a centralized denomination. Relations between its different subgroups are sometimes strained, and at times in history openinly bellicose and violent amongst one another. Accordingly, the exact limits of Orthodoxy are subject to intense debate, and the labels used to describe groups that consider themselves to be Orthodox have and continue to shift. A major example is the development of Open Orthodoxy in response to Modern Orthodoxy's "sliding to the right" from the latter 20th-century and onwards, and the Orthodox Union's the latter's adoption of the term "Torah Umadda". Very roughly, Orthodox may be divided between Haredi Judaism, which is more conservative and insular, and Modern Orthodox Judaism, which is relatively open to outer society and Activism, especially concerning Israel advocacy. It is to such a degree that within Israel itself, Modern Orthodoxy is known as Religious Zionism, fusing religious practice with political philosophy. This is one of the factors which lead to Rabbi Avi Weiss' ignition of the Open Orthodoxy movement, which nominally seeks to preserve the critical ambivalence, and even opposition, of Jewish diaspora Orthodoxy towards Zionism. Haredi Judaism is also composed of multiple independent streams, some of which may be Hasidic Judaism or Misnagdim Haredim and the Modern Orthodox are almost uniformly exclusionist, regarding their Orthodoxies as the only authentic form of Judaism and rejecting all non-Orthodox interpretations as illegitimate. This includes most non-Orthodox conversions, which has complicated Israel's Law of Return due to the political dominance of the Orthodox Chief Rabbinate over many parts of Israeli civics, such as marriage, and contentiously considering some non-Orthodox converts, and even some Orthodox conversions done outside of Israel as being Gentile.
Kemetic Orthodoxy is a denomination of Kemetism, a reform reconstruction of Egyptian polytheism for modern followers. It claims to derive a spiritual lineage from the Ancient Egyptian religion. There are organizations of Slavic Native Faith (Rodnovery) which characterize the religion as Orthodoxy and by other terms.
The terms orthodox and orthodoxy are also used more broadly by English-speakers to refer to things other than ideas and beliefs. A new and unusual way of solving a problem could be referred to as unorthodox, while a common and 'normal' way of solving a problem might be referred to as orthodox.
The concept of orthodoxy is prevalent in many forms of organized monotheism. However, orthodox belief is not usually overly emphasized in Polytheism or Animism religions, in which there is often little or no concept of dogma, and varied interpretations of doctrine and theology are tolerated and sometimes even encouraged within certain contexts. Syncretism, for example, plays a much wider role in non-monotheistic (and particularly, non-scriptural) religion. The prevailing governing norm within polytheism is often orthopraxy ('right practice') rather than the "right belief" of orthodoxy.
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