The teachings of the Holy Orthodox Church (Western Rite) are based on Holy Tradition, which includes Holy Scripture, the works of the Church Fathers, the Seven Ecumenical Councils, and the Nicene and Apostle's Creed.

We are led by bishops, which we believe to be the successors of the apostles. The line of consecration of our bishops leads back to Jesus himself, who ordained the apostles. Originally the apostles served as bishops, with each church having a plurality of presbyters (elders) and deacons. As the apostles died, the presider at the Liturgy over the Eucharist, one of the elders, became the bishop of a particular church. As the church grew, instead of one bishop per congregation, the bishop ruled over a diocese. We accept the position of St. Ignatius of Antioch: "Where the bishop is, the church is there also." Our current bishop is Timothy of Murfreesboro, Tennessee. Our Archbishop (or Metropolitan) is Metropolitan Michael. At the top of the hierarchy is the Patriarch of Constantinople, Bartholomew.

We reject the doctrine of a Pope with authority to tell other bishops what to do. The Bishop of Rome traditionally held a primacy of honor, and he could mediate disputes, but he did not have the suthority to order other bishops around. The Pope usurped this authority later, but the Orthodox consider that an illegitimate abuse of power and a denial of the view that all bishops are equal.

We are a traditional Orthodox Church that accepts the Holy Trinity, God as three persons in one substance, and Christ as fully God, fully man. We affirm the virgin birth of Christ and the bodily resurrection of Christ after he was crucified. We believe in the resurrection of the dead at the end of the age when Christ returns, some to eternal life with God on a renewed earth and heaven, and others to hell. We accept the doctrine of deification, in which a person becomes more like God over time with the help of the Holy Spirit; this never includes identity with God in Himself. We are not pantheists. We believe Christ's life, teachings, death, and resurrection were for our salvation from sin and death. We look forward to the day when death "hath no dominion" over mankind. 

We accept the doctrine of the Real Presence of Christ in the bread and wine of the Divine Liturgy, We do not try to define how this takes place. Christ is present in a real way in the bread and wine in both his divine and human natures. Attempts to define how this process occur, such as Transubstantiation, are not part of the teachings of the Orthodox Church.  

Our moral teachings are traditional; on the positive side, we encourage corporeal works of mercy, forgiveness of others, and the virtues such as humility and charity.

We believe that sacramental marriage is only between a man and a woman. We hold that premarital sex is a sin and that sexual relations should be between a husband and his wife exclusively. We affirm the objective wrongness of homosexual acts and believe that everyone is either a man or a woman. We consider abortion to be a grave moral evil. 

The Orthodox emphasize the mystical life, the process of getting closer to God through exercises such as the "Jesus Prayer"--"Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner." Salvation is not a point action but is something that involves the whole of life transformed by the love of God.