Key Scriptures

• Romans 10:9
• John 1:12–13
• Ephesians 2:8–9
• Galatians 1
• Mark 7:6–13
• 1 Corinthians 3:15

Episode Summary

• What it means to be saved according to Scripture
• Salvation as God’s work: grace alone through faith alone
• Why adding works or practices to the gospel distorts the message
• How to think carefully about individuals within doctrinally compromised systems
• The importance of belonging to a faithful, Bible-believing local church

Full Article:

Can a Person in the Eastern Orthodox Church be Saved?
By Samuel Farag

Being Saved According to Scripture

With the current rising trend of individuals flocking to the Eastern Orthodox Church, a church that promotes a different gospel (for a deeper look at this topic, see my article titled, “Does the Eastern Orthodox Church Teach the Gospel?”), faithful Bible-believing Christians want to know, “Can a person in the Eastern Orthodox Church be saved?” However, before we can answer that question, we need to walkthrough what it means to be saved according to the Word of God.

Let’s start with Romans 10:9, which clearly states that “if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” So, it requires more than just head knowledge of God. One must believe in their heart the true Jesus proclaimed in Scripture. One must genuinely repent and believe. All this comes about not by our own power but by the power of God. Key passages like John 1:12-13 make that point clear. Here, John the Beloved Disciple records, “But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.” So, the Word of God could not be clearer. We are not born again by the will of man. We are not born again by the will of the flesh. We are born again solely and exclusively by the very will of God!

So, salvation is a free gift from God, and that free gift is grace. “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast (Ephesians 2:9).” We are saved by grace alone through faith alone. No one can earn salvation. No one merits God’s grace. We are not contributing members of our own justification. It is all a work of God. As Jonathan Edwards famously said, “You contribute nothing to your salvation except the sin that made it necessary.” So, what does the Eastern Orthodox Church have to say about salvation and being saved by faith alone?

Eastern Orthodoxy versus Scripture

Unfortunately, the Eastern Orthodox worldview rejects the biblical doctrine of justification by faith alone. Their dismissal is cemented in documents like The Confession of Dositheus, which is an infallible text that is shockingly viewed on the same level as Scripture by the Eastern Orthodox Church. This is what is recorded in Decree Thirteen:

We believe a man to be not simply justified through faith alone, but through faith which works through love, that is to say, through faith and works. But [the idea] that faith can fulfill the function of a hand that lays hold on the righteousness which is in Christ, and can then apply it unto us for salvation, we know to be far from all Orthodoxy. For faith so understood would be possible in all, and so none could miss salvation, which is obviously false. But on the contrary, we rather believe that it is not the correlative of faith, but the faith which is in us, justifies through works, with Christ. But we regard works not as witnesses certifying our calling, but as being fruits in themselves, through which faith becomes efficacious, and as in themselves meriting, through the Divine promises that each of the Faithful may receive what is done through his own body, whether it be good or bad.[i]

In their own words, the Eastern Orthodox Church claims one must merit one’s own salvation. They claim that Jesus’s work on the cross was not enough. They claim that one is actually born again by one’s own will and efforts. However, this flies in the face of all that Scripture says. The Eastern Orthodox Church’s man-made doctrines distort the gospel to the point that it is no longer recognized, and they make void the Word of God for the sake of their worldly doctrines. Just like the Pharisees and scribes, who were in constant conflict with Jesus. The Eastern Orthodox Church rejects the heart of the gospel message for a works-based view of salvation. Yet Jesus showed us what He thought of those who put their trust in their own traditions. Just look at how Jesus responded to the religious elite of His day:

“Well did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written, ‘This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’ You leave the commandment of God and hold to the tradition of men.” And he said to them, “You have a fine way of rejecting the commandment of God in order to establish your tradition (Mark 7:6-9)!”

There are a myriad of man-made problematic doctrines that the Eastern Orthodox Church believes in. The most problematic are the ones that add additional requirements to the gospel. One of the most problematic examples is their belief that icon veneration is a mandatory and salvific practice (again, refer to my previously mentioned article for a deeper look at this topic).

Anyone who believes the false beliefs of the Eastern Orthodox Church that they can earn their own salvation or that icon veneration is mandatory to be saved is believing in another gospel that cannot save. As Paul talks about in his letter to the Galatians, adding requirements to the gospel is to believe no gospel at all. However, what about those members in the Eastern Orthodox Church who, whether by ignorance or by disagreement, don’t believe all that their church teaches? Can they be saved?

Saved Despite Eastern Orthodoxy

Based on the teachings found in God’s Word, the Eastern Orthodox Church is an apostate church. At the same time, based on what we know from the Word of God, those who do not hold to the specific doctrines that the Eastern Orthodox Church promotes that conflict with the gospel message can, in fact, truly be saved. There are members of the Eastern Orthodox Church who believe that they are saved by grace alone through faith alone (even if they don’t articulate it that way) because they read their Bibles and truly believe all that it says. There are members of the Eastern Orthodox Church who refuse to believe that one has to venerate icons to be saved. In some cases, these members are not aware of the Eastern Orthodox Church’s official stance on those positions. In other cases, they are fully aware of what the Eastern Orthodox Church teaches but reject its more problematic doctrines that conflict directly with the gospel message. In those cases, although these members would be seen as not being very good and faithful Eastern Orthodox members, they can truly be born-again believers.

Being a genuine born-again believer means that one has the Holy Spirit in them. And if that is the case, then through the process of sanctification, the Holy Spirit would lead these people out of the Eastern Orthodox Church. But that is not always the case. Some stay in the Eastern Orthodox Church because they believe they can reform it. Others are just not aware of how unfaithful their church really is. In either case, it is wise to never be part of an apostate church, even if one believes staying in it can have a noble cause. We are often commanded in Scripture to be part of a faithful Bible-believing local church. Staying in an apostate church is dangerous, for as Scripture says, “But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you shut the kingdom of heaven in people’s faces. For you neither enter yourselves nor allow those who would enter to go in (Matthew 23:13).”

False teachers lead the masses who follow them to hell. However, as we discussed their may be a few exceptions. Scripture even talks of those who are saved but will have very little else to show for it. Just look at what Paul said, “If anyone’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire (1 Corinthians 3:15).”

So, can a person in the Eastern Orthodox Church be saved? Yes, but it is in spite of the Eastern Orthodox Church and never because of it. Additionally, anyone who is saved and currently in the Eastern Orthodox Church should immediately leave it and find a true and faithful, Bible-believing church.

To God be all the glory!

[i] Holy Standards, The: The Creeds, Confessions, and Catechisms of the Eastern Orthodox Church, ed. Joshua Schooping (Olyphant, PA: St. Theophan the Recluse Press, 2020), 48-49.

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