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You are here: Home / Archive / Disaffection in the Orthodox church in America?

Disaffection in the Orthodox church in America?

June 1, 2006 by Richard Cimino

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The Orthodox Church in America, the largest non-ethnic Orthodox church in the US., is experiencing a drop in attendance and other problems, according to a candid report by one of its leaders.

Official membership figures of Orthodox churches are often unreliable, making it difficult to track increases or declines in attendance and other membership trends. In a letter to the Metropolitan Council of the OCA cited in Touchstonemagazine (June), theologian and senior priest Thomas Hopko lists problems that include financial scandals; alienation between bishops, priests and laypeople; “the virtual reduction of church life among many clergy to liturgical services and ritual practices” and “of supra-parochial church life to liturgical services, ecclesiastical celebrations and social events;” and a confusion about how to deal with social, political, military, economic, sexual and bioethical issues. The church reports having 400,000 members, “when less than 30,000 identify themselves as members and some dioceses have fewer members than their cathedral churches alone had 50 years ago [to] the point where a church of 200 people is considered to be large.”

(Touchstone, P.O. Box 410788, Chicago, IL 60641)

 

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  • Findings & Footnotes: June 2006
  • Morocco’s women preachers against fundementalism
  • Christians in developing countries target Da Vinci Code
  • Polish Catholicism and the spirit of capitalism
  • Catholics and Orthodox united against secularism?
  • Dissidents move toward Russian Orthodox unity
  • Current Research: June 2006
  • African-American Muslims take up new role in Islam in US
  • Home churches becoming an accepted alternative?
  • Evangelical campuses friendly to social activism
  • The eclectic and communal new age movement?

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