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If you had to explain the difference to the average folk, what would you say?
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Orthodox Church broke off from the Catholic Church and don’t recognize the Pope as the Supreme Pontiff. They view the Pope as just another Bishop. They’re also more ethnically based. That’s why they usually are called Greek Orthodox, Russian Orthodox, Byzantine, Chaldean.
Well, these days they don’t tend to even recognize the Pope as a genuine bishop, which is even weirder, considering his preeminence in the early Church.
Do they have any religious orders? Catholics have a bunch.
I don’t know too much about the Orthodox Churches.
Me neither but i wonder because their churches are autocephalous. They don’t report anything to a high ranking bishop.
I'm Orthodox. No, we don't. There have been some lay groups here and there with religious elements, but there is nothing directly comparable to western religious orders.
There are several differences between the Catholic and Orthodox churches, including:
TheologyThe Catholic Church believes the Holy Spirit comes from God the Father to Jesus Christ, while the Orthodox Church believes the Holy Spirit comes only from God the Father.
EcclesiologyThe Orthodox view the Church as a federation of local churches, while the Catholics view it as an organic communion.
The PopeThe Orthodox recognize the Pope as an important patriarch of Christianity, but not the highest leader. The Catholic Church recognizes the Pope as the highest leader, identifying him as “the Vicar of Christ on Earth”.
CelibacyCatholic clergy are celibate, while Eastern or Orthodox clergy are allowed to marry.
EucharistThe Catholic Church uses unleavened bread for the communion host, while the Orthodox churches use leavened bread.
VocabularyEastern Catholics call Mass ``the Divine Liturgy''.
The filioque controversy. This is a Latin term that refers to the clause in the Nicene Creed that says the Holy Spirit proceeds "from the Father and the Son". Orthodox often criticize this because they believe that including the word "and the Son" makes the Creed inaccurate.
Most of these differences are either immaterial or not universal. We can't say with absolute certainty that the Orthodox position on the procession differs from the Catholic one. Many efforts have been undertaken to show that formulations of both the filioquist and non-filioquist professions both profess the same faith.
Married clergy, leavened hosts, Divine Liturgy, and even the filioque clause itself (or lack thereof) can all be found among the Eastern Catholic Churches. Those differences only apply to the Latin Church, and aren't really meaningful differences (except, perhaps, to the most radical Internet Orthodox)
Bro I just answered the question, chill.
Your answer isn't accurate on most of its points
YOUR answer isn't accurate on most of its points.
It's funny you use the word "federation", since Patriarch Bartholomew uses that exact wording of a federation of Churches to deny it as a false image outsiders sometimes get of Orthodoxy which does not at all reflect how we view ourselves. He calls it an "autocephalism" that separates out the different autocephalous churches into independent entities.
You're very much wrong on this point, Orthodox view ourselves as an integrated whole, not a federation. Even if you want to view it that way, it's simply inaccurate to say that Orthodox view it in such a way.
You're saying catholic answers is wrong? https://www.catholic.com/qa/what-is-the-difference-between-eastern-orthodoxy-and-eastern-rite-catholicism
I literally copied and pasted from what they said.
Regardless of what you want to call it, the fact that two autocephalous churches can mutually excommunicate each other and still remain part of the same Orthodox Church reveals the fundamental difference
To average people?
I guess it would be "Catholic is the Christians with tonnes of Christs everywhere, and Orthodox is that but also on hats and they're Greek and Russian"
But that's a pretty simple and not useful difference.
On Theological grounds it would be "One is Greek and uses greek and the other includes all the other Churches and uses either local language or latin, but there are no major differences."