Swimming the Bosphorus

The Christian Century reports on the increase in conversions to Eastern Orthodoxy among American Christians:

The past several decades have seen an increase in conversions to Orthodoxy in the U.S. Frederica Mathewes-Green writes that nearly half the students in Orthodoxy’s two largest American seminaries—Holy Cross and St. Vladimir’s—are converts. The number of Antiochian Orthodox churches in the U.S. has doubled—to over 250 parishes and missions—in 20 years. The Antiochian Church, unlike most Orthodox organizations in the U.S., has committed itself to seeking converts in North America and sees itself “on a mission to bring America to the ancient Orthodox Christian faith.” The missions organization of this branch of Orthodoxy estimates that 80 percent of its converts come from evangelical and charismatic orientations, with 20 percent coming from mainline denominations.

The author, Amy Johnson Frykholm, suggests that part of the attraction is the desire for a more authentic communal experience of Christianity in contrast to hyper-individualism, doctrinal laxity and banal worship:

…converts to Orthodoxy … diagnos[e] two distinct problems in contemporary American Christianity. One is the turn toward theological and social liberalism; the other is an entertainment-oriented, self-indulgent style of worship. These two issues sometimes draw different kinds of converts, but they are often equated with one root problem: individualism. Doctrine, practice, sacrament and worship are all suited to the needs and desires of the self.

Though Frykholm finds much to admire, especially in the spirituality of a monk she meets in Denver, she wonders if some converts, many from conservative evangelical backgrounds, haven’t exchanged one fundamentalism for another:

If the Holy Spirit is a living presence in Orthodoxy, then why were social questions of enormous complexity—abortion, feminism and homosexuality, to name a few of the most controversial—treated with such dismissive certainty by many of the converts I met? While I value historical roots and the search for answers within the church’s rich past, I wonder why, in contemporary Orthodoxy in the United States, those answers are so easy to come by. Orthodox converts told me that they find comfort in the stability of the church, that positions on issues such as homosexuality and abortion have already been decided and will not change any time soon. But are answers preferred to compassion or the living work of the Spirit? By settling readily on answers to social questions, do converts embrace Orthodoxy as another form of fundamentalism?

See also John Garvey’s “Typology of Converts.” Garvey is an Orthodox priest (and convert) who writes frequently for Commonweal.