Oxford history of the christian church

PART II. ORGANIZATION AND LIFE OF THE ORTHODOX CHURCH.
General.

A full and reliable account of the Orthodox Church in the Byzantine Empire has yet to be written. In fact this is probably not yet possible because evidence is still in process of emerging, so that only interim reports can be presented, although there were certain basic tenets which remained unchanged throughout the period. There are several very brief general accounts usually from the Orthodox point of view, e.g. T. Ware, The Orthodox Church (London, 1963); J. Meyendorff, Byzantine Theology (London and Oxford, 1975) and his The Orthodox Church (New York, 1981), which goes up to the present day. A good exposition though exceedingly brief is “The Byzantine Church” by J. Meyendorff in The Byzantine Legacy in the Orthodox Church (New York, 1982). A somewhat more detailed presentation is found in H.-G. Beck, Geschichte der orthodoxen Kirche im byzantinischen Reich (with bibliography) (Göttingen, 1980).