The nice thing about being Orthodox is that I don't have to go spend hours reading, coming to a personal interpretation, then checking the beleifs of my denomination to see whether I have to split off to form a rival synod since my personal interpretation doesn't match the church's stance.
I can instead accept the beleifs of my spiritual leaders on the matter, and be done with it.
Kawaii answered your question fully and exhaustively in the first part of 5,127. It is a lengthy answer, but the question you posed deserved one.
The Second Coming of Christ will signal a new life in glory for the "blessed of the Father", who will "possess the kingdom prepared for them from the foundation of the world". The living and the dead will come together and will be with Christ forever. That is the meaning of 1 Thessalonians 4.
The rapture theology takes off from that scriptural fact in some bizarre direction, as the article Kawaii posted explains.