Yes, of course they were members of the Bride of Christ. Why wouldn’t they be?
Christ talks about FOUNDING the Church on the apostles. “Upon this rock I will build my church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it.” Matt 16:18
Yes, and they did not belong to the Eastern Orthdox church. They preceded it. It’s Who you belong to that matters; to the extent that traditions support that, they are laudable.
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They did not precede the Orthodox Church. They established apostolic succession. See the statements of Ignatius above. The Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church (including the Oriental Orthodox), and perhaps Anglicans and Methodists can trace their lineage back to the apostles. I would say, from looking at church history and studying theology, the Orthodox Church is the only church who has kept the faith of apostles in its totality. As Orthodox say, Protestants have subtracted from it and Catholics have added to it.
This matters because the way we understand our salvation matters and the Orthodox Church, at least as far as I can see, will keep you on the straight and narrow in this regard more than any other.
They were members of the Jerusalem church first, led by James, not Peter, who was the brother of Jesus and according to Jerome, an apostle. The Eastern Orthodox church did not form until later.
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Why don’t you go online and look at where the current Patriarchate of Jerusalem traces its origins back to. The Orthodox Church is simply a designation that emerged after the Eastern church split from the Western church. So the designation came around over 1000 yrs later. Before that, what did they call it? Probably just “the Church,” I dunno. Haha but there is continuity going back to the apostles and that’s what’s important.
What does Peter have to do with anything? I’m not Catholic. It’s James? I’d have to look. That’s fine with me. 
I am not at all restricting the Spirits work. I am acknowledging that the church belongs to Jesus and he is the one who builds it through his Spirit.
It’s a fact that the church Jesus has built spans across many denominations.
If Jesus wanted, he could have made the orthodox church special by doing mighty miracles to witness for them. This is what Jesus has done throughout history when he wanted to show that someone is a leader selected by him. God did this for Joshua when he took over from Moses by doing mighty miracles. And the same thing happened for the Apostles when they were given charge. God still does miracles through his church. However this “church” is not confined to any denomination.
This is an important fact.
Doesn’t make any difference as long as it’s not clear what this “unwritten tradition” is. The patriarchs were still claiming authority from the teachings of the Apostles as delivered to individuals who had direct/indirect access to their teachings. It’s not the tradition that has authority… it was still the Apostles who taught authoritatively… in this case orally.
You are claiming that this tradition is the liturgy of the orthodox church. You are claiming that the church has the infallible ability to fix the correct tradition. Here the authority is the orthodox church as a body, not the apostles.
God has not given witness to the authority of the orthodox church.
Actually this cuts out pretty much every church. The bishops appointed by the apostles were leaders of the whole church. Such bishops don’t exist anymore.
And though they ascribed the authority for the apostles to themselves, they failed to lead the church with Apostolic authority. Because they weren’t Apostles.
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They called it Catholic (Universal) Church of Christ. Now it’s split in Roman Catholic Church in the west and Orthodox Catholic Church (more commonly known as Eastern Orthodox Church) in the east.
There is also, of course, Old Catholic Church, Traditional Catholic Church and Eastern Catholic Church but they all accept papal authority.