The Antiochian Orthodox Catholic Apostolic Church, as a part of the Ancient Orthodox Catholic Apostolic Church believes in these core theologies and doctrines: revelation has one common source—God—and two distinct modes of transmission: Holy Scripture and Holy Tradition, and that these are authentically interpreted, as agreed upon within the Ancient Orthodox Catholic Apostolic Statute, with guidance from the Holy Spirit.

This church, as a part of the Ancient Orthodox Catholic Apostolic Church is guided and protected by the Holy Spirit, so she is not capable of apostatizing, particularly when a firm decision is reached in the great and holy councils or joint-declarations pertaining to the teachings of the Church of Christ or smaller disputes among the personal beliefs of members.

The teaching of the Holy Spirit’s preservation is upheld also in the local statutes of the autocephalous bodies of the Church, as they may discern theological and doctrinal issues which may be presented before the Ancient Orthodox Catholic Apostolic Church as a whole according to the pre-ecumenical councils, the Nicaean Creed, the Creed of Newark, and the writings of the Fathers of the Great and Holy Church, which collectively form the Holy Tradition of the Great and Holy Church of Jesus the Christ, Son of God, and God of God.

Holy Scripture in the Church consists of the forty-seven books of the Old Testament, and the thirty-six books of the New Testament. The Holy Bible in the Ancient Orthodox Catholic and Apostolic Church uses the Targum, Septuagint, pre-Vulgate and Peshitta texts for the Old Testament and the Textus Receptus for the New Testament. Holy Scripture is understood by canon law to contain historical fact, poetry, idiom, metaphor, simile, moral fable, parable, prophecy and wisdom literature, and each bears its own consideration in its interpretation. While divinely inspired, the text stills consist of words in human languages, arranged in humanly recognizable forms. The Great and Holy Apostolic Church of Christ does not oppose honest critical and historical study of the Bible.

In biblical interpretation, the Church decrees in unison to not use speculations, suggestive theories, or incomplete indications, not going beyond what is fully known. Holy Scripture and Holy Tradition are collectively known as the deposit of faith within the Church of Christ. 

This church, as a part of the Church of Christ professes the belief in one eternal God who is both within and outside the universe and all creation as three Persons: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. Together, these three Persons are called the Most Holy and Sovereign Trinity. The Most Holy and Sovereign Trinity’s Persons are three distinct Persons, yet of the same relation—being God. Ecumenical Metropolitan Auriel Jones explained this interpretation stating: “the Father is neither the Son nor the Holy Spirit, the Son is neither the Father nor the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit is neither the Father nor the Son, but in the end, They are God.” The Father does not proceed and is not begotten as the Self-Sustaining and Uncaused Fountainhead, the Son is eternal and begotten of the Father outside of time in eternity, but not created, and the Holy Spirit is eternal and proceeds from the Father but is not created or begotten. The Holy Spirit proceeds out of time, and from eternity with the Son, from the Father.  The Son and the Holy Spirit are never to be held as creations, nor lesser than the Father by these measures. The Son and Holy Spirit share the same essence of the Father, and this essence is deity. The Church upholds that the Son has preeminence by all things being made through Him, as He has all rights over everything the Father has. It is noted that in the Trinitarian understanding of the Church of Christ, that the Father encompasses all things; while He lacks a physical form, the Christ is the express image of the Father. The Christ is God wrapped in physicality, never losing deity. The Holy Spirit, while lacking a physical form mostly, appears as a flame or dove, or by various other methods found in Holy Scripture.

Regarding the nature of the Christ, it is upheld that in His one person, divinity and humanity are united in one nature without separation, without confusion, without alteration and without mixing, where the Christ is consubstantial with God the Father. This Christology is often later referred to as Miaphysitism, or Old Oriental Christology.

The Antiochian Orthodox Catholic Apostolic Church understands the Christ’s death and resurrection to be actual historical events, as described in the Four Gospels and proclaimed in the Nicaean Creed and the Creed of Newark. The bishops and presbyters of the Church preach that the Christ was born, was crucified, died, descended into Hades as all humans do, conquered Hades and Death himself, rose again and freed the world by granting salvation to all, and ascended into Heaven where He will return again in judgment.

On sin, salvation, and the Incarnation, the entirety of the Ancient Orthodox Catholic Apostolic Church teaches at some point in the beginnings of humanity’s existence, mankind was faced with a choice: to learn the difference between good and evil through observation or through participation. The biblical story of Adam and Eve relates this choice by mankind to participate in evil, accomplished through disobedience to God’s command. Both the intent and the action were separate from God’s will; it is that separation that defines and marks any operation as sin. The separation from God caused the fall from His grace, a severing of mankind from his creator and the source of his life. The result was the diminishment of human nature and its subjection to death and corruption, an event commonly referred to as the “fall of man”. 

When members of the Ancient Orthodox Catholic Apostolic Church refer to fallen nature, they must not say that human nature has become evil in itself. Human nature is still formed in the image of God; humans are still God’s creation, and God has never created anything evil. But humanity’s fallen nature remains open to evil intentions and actions.

It is sometimes said that humans are “inclined to sin”, that is, humanity finds some sinful things attractive. It is the nature of temptation to make sinful things seem the more attractive, and it is the fallen nature of humans that seeks or succumbs to the attraction. Ancient Orthodox Catholic Apostolic Christians reject the position that the descendants of Adam and Eve are guilty of the original sin of their ancestors. But just as any species begets its own kind, so fallen humans beget fallen humans, and from the beginning of humanity’s existence, man and woman lie open to sinning by their own choice. Since the fall of man, it has been mankind’s dilemma that no human can restore his nature to union with God’s grace; it was necessary for God to affect another change in human nature. 

As a part of the Ancient Orthodox Catholic Apostolic Church, this church teaches that the Christ is both God and Man absolutely and completely: eternally begotten of the Father in His divinity, He was born of a woman, the Theotokos, known also as Christotokos, through descent of the Holy Spirit. He lived on Earth, in time and history, as God and Man. As God and Man, He also died and descended to the Place of the Dead, which is Hades. 

But being God, neither Death nor Hades could contain Him, and He rose to life again in His humanity, by the power of the Holy Spirit, thus destroying the power of Hades, and of Death himself. Through God’s participation in humanity, the Christ ascended into Heaven, there to reign at the right hand of God the Father. By these acts of salvation, Christ provided mankind with the path to escape succumbing to the fallen spirit. 

The Antiochian Orthodox Catholic Apostolic Church, within the body of Ancient Orthodoxy, teaches that through baptism into the Christ’s death, and humanity’s death unto sin in repentance, with God’s help humanity can also rise with Jesus the Christ into Heaven, only as the children of God mankind was made to be, healed of the breach of man’s inclination to sin, and restored to God’s grace. To the Ancient Orthodox Catholic Apostolic Church of Christ, this process is what is meant by “salvation”, which consists of the Christian life on Earth. 

The ultimate goal of a member of the Church, as decreed in council, is reaching the “Adamic state”—an even closer union with God by constant daily devotion and refraining from almost all worldly ways (a form of monasticism). Through the Christ’s destruction of Hades power to hold humanity hostage, He made the path to salvation effective for all the righteous who had died from the beginning of time—saving many, including Adam and Eve, who are remembered in the Church as saints. 

The autocephalous member within the Ancient Orthodox Catholic Apostolic Church rejects the idea that the Christ died to give God “satisfaction”, become a punitive substitute, or even be a creation with the divine purpose of sacrifice, taught by the most heretical of churches claiming the Christ. 

Sin (separation from God, the source of all life and true happiness) is its own punishment, capable of imprisoning the soul in an existence without life, without anything good, and without hope. Life on Earth is a gift from God to give humanity an opportunity to make their choice real: separation from Him, or union to Him. 
Members are tasked with evangelizing across the world that others may desire to change their choice, in order to be united in fellowship with the Triune God.

The Church of Christ wholly proclaims that the Virgin Mary is indeed the Mother of God, as she bore God Incarnate. She is honored within the Church as the Theotokos, or God-bearer; she is also honored as Christotokos, or Christ-bearer. The Theotokos is pre-eminent among all, and the fulfillment of the Old Testament archetypes revealed in the Ark of the Covenant (because she carried the New Covenant in the person of the Christ) and the burning bush that appeared before Moses (symbolizing the Mother of God’s carrying of God without being consumed). 

Accordingly, the Church considers Mary to be the Ark of the New Covenant and give her the respect and reverence as such. The Theotokos was chosen by God and she freely co-operated in that choice to be the Mother of Jesus the Christ, the Lord and Savior of humanity and all creation, thus being the Christotokos as stated prior. 

In matters of life and death, the Church believes death and the separation of body and soul to be unnatural—a result of man’s fall. The Church also holds that the worship of the Church (or the local individual church) comprises both the living and the dead. 

All persons currently in Heaven are considered to be saints, whether their names are known or not. There are, however, those saints of distinction whom God has revealed as particularly good examples.

Numerous saints are celebrated on each day of the year. They are shown great respect and love, but not worshiped, for worship is due God alone. In showing the saints this love and requesting their prayers, as the Church teaches they are alive in Heaven and do God’s extended work above, the Church manifests her belief that the saints thus assist in the process of salvation for others by providing encouragement from Heaven in their conversations with God pertaining to a person, or in their writings. 

This church, of the Ancient Orthodox Catholic Apostolic Church, believes that when a person dies the soul is temporarily separated from the body. Though it may linger for a short period on Earth, it is ultimately escorted either to Paradise or the darkness of Hades, following the Temporary Judgment. 

Ancient Orthodox Catholic Apostolic Christians of the Latinian and Antiochian churches do not accept the doctrine of Purgatory, which is held by Roman Catholicism, nor the Toll Houses of Orthodox Catholicism. 

The soul’s experience of either of these states—Paradisial Heaven or Hades—is decreed to be only a “foretaste”—being experienced only by the soul—until the Final Judgment, when the soul and body will be reunited. The Church teaches the state of the soul in Hades can be affected by the love and prayers of the righteous up until the Last Judgment. 

For this reason the entirety of the Ancient Orthodox Catholic Apostolic Church offers a special prayer for the departed on each day of liturgical celebration. There are also several days throughout the year that are set aside for general commemoration of the departed. These days usually fall on a Saturday, since it was on a Saturday that the Christ lay in the Holy Sepulcher. 
Pertaining to the text of the Apocalypse (Book of Revelation), which the Church deems to be a part of Scripture, it is regarded to be a mystery. Speculation on the contents of Revelation are minimal and it is never read as part of the regular order of liturgy. 

The bishops of the Church of Christ who have delved into its pages tend to be premillennialist or even amillennialist in their eschatology, believing that the “thousand years” spoken of in biblical prophecy refers to the present time: from the Crucifixion of the Christ until the Second Coming. 

The Church further believes that Hell, though often described in metaphor as punishment inflicted by God, is in reality the soul’s rejection of God’s infinite love which is offered freely and abundantly to everyone, while also acknowledging it as the final destination of the damned, more commonly known as the Lake of Fire. 

In the end, all of the Ancient Orthodox Catholic Apostolic Church proclaims by the Scriptures that all souls will be reunited with their resurrected bodies and fully experience their eternity. 

Having been perfected, the saints will forever progress towards a deeper and fuller love of God, which equates with eternal happiness while residing on a new, sinless Earth in a restored cosmos, that is, the universe. Having been condemned, the damned will perish, being cast away from all holiness in Hell with those angels that rebelled against the Lord their God, and creator. 

Further pertaining to Hell, the Ancient Orthodox Catholic Apostolic Church accepts that this eternal darkness is made of various stairs and corridors. The first is the Lake of Fire, to which the souls of the damned shall be cast after the Divine Judgment of God. It may also be referred to as Gehenna, which is also the physical place where children were unduly sacrificed, cursing the land. The second is the Land of Tartarus, the abode of the fallen angels and their descendants, the Nephilim. The two stairs and greater corridors of Hell make known their witness to God’s righteous might.