Is Orthodox conversion on the rise?

  • Spend­ing a pleas­ant Sun­day catch­ing up on things, I came across this recent arti­cle from USA Today enti­tled “More Amer­i­cans Join Ortho­dox Churches.”

    In the United States, Ortho­dox Chris­tians are a frac­tion of reli­gious believ­ers, num­ber­ing about 1.2 mil­lion, accord­ing to esti­mates by Ortho­dox researchers.

    In the past, their growth had been largely fueled by immi­gra­tion, with churches form­ing mainly along eth­nic lines. Some con­verts came to Ortho­doxy through mar­riage to a church member.

    But now about one-third of all U.S. Ortho­dox priests are con­verts — and that num­ber is likely to grow, accord­ing to Alexei D. Krindatch, research direc­tor at the Patri­arch Athenago­ras Ortho­dox Insti­tute in Berke­ley, Calif. A 2006 sur­vey of the four Ortho­dox sem­i­nar­ies in the coun­try found that about 43% of sem­i­nar­i­ans are con­verts, Krindatch said.

    There are no exact fig­ures on the rate of con­ver­sion across the 22 sep­a­rate U.S. Ortho­dox juris­dic­tions. But when Men­cotti began attend­ing Ortho­dox wor­ship, the church was packed with con­verts, includ­ing the church’s pas­tor, the Rev. John Dixon.

    The Rev. John Matu­siak, pas­tor of St. Joseph Church in Wheaton, Ill., part of the Ortho­dox Church in Amer­ica, said his parish has grown from 20 peo­ple in the early 1990s to more than 600 today, with the over­whelm­ing major­ity of new mem­bers younger than 40.

    Krindatch’s research found that one-third of the more than 200 U.S. parishes in the Anti­ochian Ortho­dox Church were founded after 1990.

    I wish they had harder num­bers to attach to the claim. It’s inter­est­ing to know that 43% of the priests in Ortho­dox sem­i­nary are con­verts, but I’m more inter­ested in know­ing if the num­ber of priests has gone up. And hear­ing from two peo­ple that their churches have grown tremen­dously is great news, but it’s anec­do­tal. I won­der why it was that “There are no exact fig­ures on the rate of con­ver­sion across the 22 sep­a­rate U.S. Ortho­dox juris­dic­tions.” Do we not keep track of mem­ber­ship? (Maybe not. I don’t really know.)

    Any­way, it’s good news, and it’s a good arti­cle. Though they’re sparse on the Church his­tory, all the state­ments are accu­rate, which I appre­ci­ate. And they even have a quote from Fr. Joseph “Orthodixie” Hun­ey­cutt (although their hyphen­ation of Anti­ochian — “Anti-ochian” — is a bit strange. Makes it look like they’re the church that’s against the Ochians).

    Let’s hope we are trend­ing up. Not that it hasn’t been fun being a mem­ber of the Chris­t­ian Church no one’s ever heard of. But enough’s enough.


    Related posts:

    1. Cra­dle and con­vert Orthodox
    2. The Ortho­dox con­vert list
    3. Gun­point conversion
    4. A Vic­to­rian take on the Ortho­dox Church
    5. Becom­ing Ortho­dox by Peter E. Gillquist

    February 4th, 2007 | Grace | 4 Comments |

4 Responses and Counting...

  • Fr Joseph Huneycutt 02.04.2007

    What exactly IS an Ochian? And can we eat them on fast­ing days?
    :)

    In the orig­i­nal arti­cle, bet­ter and longer than the ver­sion that appeared in USATo­day, Anti­ochian was not hyphen­ated. I can only guess that some­where, in some paper, it was hyphen­ated in the edit­ing process and who­ever cut and pasted it to USATo­day didn’t know any better.

    It helps that the AP writer respon­si­ble for the arti­cle has actu­ally vis­ited an Anti­ochian Ortho­dox parish!

  • Erica

    I will not tol­er­ate Ochians.

  • Mimi

    I’ll reserve my opin­ion on the Ochi­ans until a later date ;)

  • Grace

    Hmph. Such philistines. I’m pro-Ochian. I never saw one I didn’t like.

    I won­der what color rib­bon I should use for my Save the Ochi­ans sticker.

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