As you would expect, the recent Wall Street Journal feature on the rising number of converts to Eastern Orthodox Christianity was a big deal here in Orthodox circles in East Tennessee.

Why? The WSJ piece was built, in large part, on contacts with sources here in the Appalachian mountains and nearby. The headline: “Eastern Orthodoxy Gains New Followers in America — Ancient faith is drawing converts with no ties to its historic lands.”

This is not a new story, of course, since the “convert-friendly era” of Orthodoxy began in the 1980s and ‘90s. But, for reasons explained in the WSJ piece, there is enough novelty linked to this trend — especially when contrasted with stark mainline Protestant decline — that the topic has made a few headlines every five years or so.

What this new piece does better than others, I think, is note the paradox found in American Orthodoxy — that some churches are growing rapidly, while others are plateaued or in decline. Consider this statement of the “trend,” which is described as a “small but fast-growing group of Americans from diverse backgrounds who have embraced Orthodoxy in the past few years.” Here is an important background passage:

Eastern Orthodoxy is one of the two parts of the Christian world that emerged from the Great Schism of the 11th century, a split with the Roman Catholic Church caused principally by disagreement over the authority of the pope. Its members belong to a family of churches with historic roots in Eastern Europe, Russia and the region of the eastern Mediterranean. … 

The Eastern Orthodox population of the U.S. is dominated by immigrants from the church’s historic lands and by their descendants. But in recent years, aided by more widely available information on the internet, the church has been attracting more attention from people with no ancestral ties to Orthodoxy, a trend that appears to have accelerated following the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic. 

Some pastors across the country report growth of their flocks by 15% or more in a single year owing to conversions, defying an overall trend of decline similar to that in other denominations.

I must be candid and note that here was another reason that this WSJ article created quite a buzz — it contrasted sharply with last year’s NPR piece: “Orthodox Christian churches are drawing in far-right American converts.”

I wrote about that in a post with this headline: “Concerning the new converts to Eastern Orthodoxy: Are they MAGA clones or worse?” I noted:

It would be hard to imagine a more vicious, one-sided propaganda piece than this one and, if you want to see a blow-by-blow breakdown, read this post by Orthodox convert Rod Dreher: “The Cathedral Vs. The Orthodox Church.”

Rod is using the term “cathedral” as a reference to a particular set of elite media and cultural institutions on what used to be called the “left.” Needless to say, NPR — like the editorial pages of The New York Times — plays a crucial doctrinal role in this cathedral.

Of course, I also noted that:

Veteran GetReligion readers will know that I am a convert to Eastern Orthodoxy, as well — coming from a Texas Baptist family with several members in the center of Southern Baptist life. If you want to know more about my own journey, see this lecture/essay from 2006: “What do the converts want?”

When people ask why I converted, my short response is that I was seeking a beautiful, conservative, ancient form of Christian tradition that didn’t include ties to American fundamentalism. Since my conversion 23 years ago, I have talked to — conservative estimate — several hundred converts in various settings, including my own parishes.

You can also see more of my recent work on this topic in this “On Religion” column: “When facing cultural chaos, priests need ancient symbols and truths, not more political talk.” It focused on a series of lectures to Orthodox Church in America clergy and lay leaders (in the Diocese of the South) by iconographer and online maven Jonathan Pageau of Canada.

The NPR piece focused on a few wild people who have converted to Orthodoxy, including one white supremacist who was immediately excommunicated and has since moved to the fringe of the fringe. Yes, that man spent some time in East Tennessee.

The WSJ reporter — Francis X. Rocca, best known for covering the Vatican and Catholic issues — made early contacts with mainstream Orthodox leaders active with converts. This led to clergy contacts with a variety of journalists (including me) who know some of the local pastors who might be willing to talk to a veteran reporter.

This, in turn, led (#DUH) to interview material with actual converts in rather ordinary places that, yes, are seeing many, many converts. My own parish here in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, has seen a 30% or even 40% growth in attendance during the past three years — while doing everything we could to worship according to pandemic safety protocols (with active leadership by our bishop). At one point, we rented a large tent — yes, think tent revivals — in which to celebrate Holy Week and Pascha.

Thus, WSJ readers were given a quite nuanced look at what is happening:

Alexei D. Krindatch, national coordinator of the U.S. Census of Orthodox Christian Churches, said the practicing Eastern Orthodox population in the U.S. was 675,000 in 2020, down from 816,000 a decade earlier, and most parishes lost members after the outbreak of the pandemic. But Krindatch said about 13% of Orthodox parishes have experienced a “surge in vitality” since 2020, measured not only by growth in membership but by other indicators including church attendance, financial giving, enrollment in religious education and participation in parish activities beyond worship. Prominent among the characteristics of these parishes, he said, is a higher-than-average share of converts.

Some say it is no coincidence that the pandemic, with all its social and economic disruption, ushered in newcomers drawn by the ancient faith’s traditional teachings and the beauty of its worship, which prominently features the veneration of icons.

“We’ve all experienced a world where the ground has shifted underneath our feet,” said the Rev. Stephen Mathewes, pastor of a church in Bluff City, Tenn. “A lot of people … want something that is going to stand the test of time, no matter what happens in the world.”

A few paragraphs later, Krindatch was quoted again making a crucial point:

Converts to Orthodoxy tend to be more conservative on social and moral issues, for instance in their opposition to same-sex marriage and the ordination of women, than those who were born in the church, Krindatch said. 

The Rev. Jonathan Ivanoff, pastor of a church in Shirley, N.Y., on Long Island, says that many converts have abandoned denominations that have taken a more liberal line on such matters and have come to Orthodoxy, in which liberals are still very much in the minority, as a kind of refuge. 

Dr. Colette Hoilman, 29, a medical doctor and new mother in Kingsport, Tenn., who formerly attended an evangelical church, became Orthodox shortly before her marriage to a fellow convert in 2020. She said one of her Protestant friends asked her how she could join a church in which only men can be priests; she replied that it wasn’t a problem for her. 

“The Orthodox Church reveres women. We venerate the Mother of God more than most saints,” Hoilman said.

I would stress that, in my experience, Orthodox believers who actively attend primarily “ethnic” congregations tend to be quite conservative when defending centuries of Orthodox doctrines and traditions. Those who are less active? Not so much.

Is that a factor in the growth of the “convert-friendly parishes,” which stress seasons of the celebration of all holy days and feasts, fasting, confession and other “Big T” Orthodox teachings and traditions? I think the evidence says, “Yes.”

Is all of this linked to the Donald Trump era, latent racism and other current demons?

Well, that certainly wasn’t the case in the 1980s, ‘90s, ‘00s, etc., when these same trends were clearly visible (also look for parishes that are producing new priests, as well as converts), but not receiving as much mainstream ink.

Read the NPR piece. If you can work around the WSJ paywall, read all of that piece.

Contrast the two. What other differences do you spot, in terms of the basic reporting and sourcing?

FIRST IMAGE: Uncredited illustration of the inside of an Orthodox church sanctuary featured at the Journey to Orthodoxy website.