Forgive me if I sometimes get confused between "Catholic" and "Catholic".
I am aware you frequently speak from the perspective of the Orthodox but you also slip into "Catholic speak".
Perhaps a disclaimer would help poor old fools such as me understand where you are coming from at a particular time.
FWIW I believe the Orthodox Churches have remained much more faithful to the practices of the relatively old Christian practices than that of the Latin variety. That said, I also believe they would be unrecognizeable to the "early" Christian Church.
I can understand that, although if an Eastern perspective is given (hints being the use of the words such as "Eastern Orthodox" or "Orthodox" or just "Eastern") it is not Latin or Roman Catholic. I usually use catholic (lower case "c") to refer to something common to the early Church, and an upper case "C" for the modern Latin or Roman version of it.
I am aware you frequently speak from the perspective of the Orthodox but you also slip into "Catholic speak
If I am familiar with something I will post it as such, indicating whose perspective it is. At least that is my intention.
Perhaps a disclaimer would help poor old fools such as me understand where you are coming from at a particular time.
I believe I stated in my reply that it was from an Orthodox point of view. That in itself is sui generis a disclaimer .
FWIW I believe the Orthodox Churches have remained much more faithful to the practices of the relatively old Christian practices than that of the Latin variety. That said, I also believe they would be unrecognizeable to the "early" Christian Church
Christianity, or perhaps better said Christ following, was a very heterodox community, meaning there were numerous variants in belief as well as worship. The "orthodox" faction won and became the established, official Christianity, the way the Pharisaical faction of Judaism survived and became the only form of Judaism (the Sadducees disappeared in the 2nd century, the Essenes probably earlier, and the Greek-speaking Alexandrian Jews probably became Christianized early on).
That orthodox community called itself the Catholic Church. The early Catholic Church (late 1st and most of the 2nd century) was Greek not Latin. The worship (eucharistia or thanksgiving) was conducted in Greek even in Rome as late as the third cnetury (at least in part), as described by St. Justin Martyr (c. AD 150).
The oldest liturgy is considered the Liturgy of St. James, allegedly a 1st century organized worship, which mentions readings only from the Old Testament, supposedly because the New Testament hadn't been written yet. It's still in use in some Eastern churches (dedicated to St. James), but everyone agrees that it has been "revised" somewhat and is not the original version.
How much would the earliest Christians recognize the worship of the Eastern churches is debatable. The liturgical worship is not alien to Judaism, including incense, kissing of holy objects, bowing, lighting candles, etc. all of which are part of the catholic worship.
Certainly the idea of liturgical worship did not come from the pagan religions, but from the Jewish roots, and is heavily influenced by the Psalms.
In the Epistle to Smyrneans, one of the seven letters of St. Ignatius considered authentic (the pre-5th century collection), he speaks of the real presence, and all other aspects of the worship common to both Orthodox and Latin Churches. So, at least there is some indication that by 110 AD, if not earlier (i.e. the Judaic elements, as well as the Liturgy of St. James, Didache, etc.) the modern Orthodox/Latin worship contains elements present in the worship of early Christians who would probably not find modern worship utterly unrecognizable.
The development of the Christian liturgy did not come out of nowhere. The Church Fathers were aprt of the same cultural and linguistic makeup that wrote the New Testament and it is precisely form them that we have the evolution of liturgical traditions in the early catholic Church, which are still observed by the East.