Comment by dragonwriter

Prior to the East-West Schism, and from the beginnings of organized Christianity, the entities which became the Eastern Orthodox Churches after the schism had the same Pope, with a somewhat different role, as Western Christianity.

Some of them also have had things not unlike the inquisition, though they don't call it that.

And, of course, outside of the Eastern Orthodox and maybe the “Old Catholics”, even those Christians who disagree with the Roman Catholic position don't see the Eastern Orthodox as having a particular claim to original Christianity.

EDIT: for example, the Oriental Orthodox Churches and the Church of the East are, in their current form, older than the Eastern Orthodox, and from their perspective the branch containing both sides of the 1054 Schism is a divergence from “original Christianity” in the same way that Western Christianity is viewed by the Eastern Orthodox.,,