Western Christians often scare the bejesus out of me (pun intended). You have expressed it so well concerning Orthodoxy. Many elders tell us that Orthodoxy is not a religion but a way of life and that the Church is a hospital for sinners. If you take the dogma out of it, then you can see the therapeutic attributes even more clearly. We commit wrongs, we admit them to a "therapriest", he forgives us, we drink some wine, eat some bread and go on our merry way with the admonishmnet to correct ourselves. All the while by being Divinely inspired, blessed and with a figure (Christ) to aspire to. I know this is a rather simple explanation and most Orthodox Christians would smack me for stating it this way. Orhodoxy is simply put, more Zen.

Obviously, we believe in a Triune God and have our own dogma and infighting. We are not perfect but we also realize that perfection is unacheivable even among the best of us. The thing that bothers me most is that we were One Church until the 9th-10th centuries and now we have this total cluster-fuck (sorry, I'm a former Marine) that calls itself Christianity in the form of something like 39,000 denominations. Would we perfect without the Great Schism of 1054? No. But certainly, we would most likely not be as bad as we are today (Christianity in general).

Guess I am just old fashioned in that I prefer to stick with the original because it is the purest form. Anyway, happy trails, Benjamin.