The Greek Orthodox Church The Greek Orthodox Church is one of the three major branches of Christianity, which "stands in today's society as one of the communities created by the apostles of Jesus in the region of the eastern Mediterranean, and which spread by missionary activity throughout Eastern Europe" (Meyendorff 5).The word orthodox comes from Greek, meaning right-believing. currently the orthodox religion has more than 174 million followers throughout the world. The Greek Orthodox church is autocephalous, that is, governed by its own head bishop. The head bishops of this autocephalous church may be called patriarch, metropolitan