‘The Orthodox Church: Its Past and Its Role in the World Today’ (often associated with the revised edition by John Meyendorff or Bishop Kallistos Ware) is a classic, comprehensive introduction to the Eastern Orthodox Church. It aims to introduce Orthodox history, doctrine, and life to Western readers and to provide reflection for Orthodox believers themselves. It explains that the Orthodox Church is a family of autonomous (autocephalous) churches united by a common faith and sacramental communion, not by a single centralized authority. It is considered a standard introduction to Orthodoxy because of its balance between deep theological history and the actual situation of the church in the modern world.