Category: Statistics

The Massive Growth of the Orthodox Episcopate Since 2006

In 2006, there were 668 active, canonical Orthodox bishops in the world. Today, there are 947. That's a net increase of 279 bishops, or 42% -- and most of that growth is coming from the Moscow Patriarchate. Last week, I published an article estimating the number of Orthodox bishops in...

How many Orthodox bishops are in the world?

As best I can tell, there are 941 active, canonical Orthodox bishops in the world right now. Give or take. Compared to the 19th century, that's a big increase -- in 1859, we had just 278 bishops worldwide. But at the time of the First Ecumenical Council, there were a...

Under-30 American Orthodox Priests Are Disappearing

Fr. Andrew Damick, cofounder of SOCHA, was ordained to the priesthood in 2006. A few weeks ago, I published some preliminary data from a study I'm conducting on the ordination ages of American Orthodox priests, as well as the waiting period between convert priests' conversions and their ordinations. Since publishing...

How long do converts wait before ordination?

Archbishop Dmitri Royster of Dallas was 31 years old and had been Orthodox for 13 years when he was ordained to the priesthood in 1954. Last week, I wrote about the ordination ages of American Orthodox priests. In that article, I made some preliminary observations about the length of time...

How old are American Orthodox priests at ordination?

Fr. Thomas Hopko was just 24 years old when he was ordained to the priesthood. A few weeks ago, I published some data about American Orthodox bishops, including the fact that 58% of bishops in American Orthodox history were ordained to the priesthood before they turned thirty -- this, despite...

Statistics on Celibate & Widower Bishops in American Orthodoxy

Metropolitan Orestes Chornock, widower bishop and founding primate of the American Carpatho-Russian Orthodox Diocese I have a list of 213 Orthodox bishops who have served in America. Of these, 179 were never married (we'll call them "celibates"), and the other 34 were widowers. So 84% celibates, 16% widowers. (Two of...

Orthodox bishops in 1859

I ran across this the other day -- in 1859, there were 278 Orthodox bishops in the world: Church Bishops Constantinople (including Romania, Bulgaria, and part of Serbia) 136 Russia (including Georgia) 65 Greece 24 Antioch 17 Jerusalem 14 Austria (now Serbia, mostly) 11 Alexandria 5 Cyprus 4 Mount Sinai 1...

American Orthodox Atlas Now Available in Electronic Format

If you've seen the Atlas of American Orthodox Christian Churches, edited by Alexei Krindatch, you know that it's an indispensable and utterly fascinating wealth of information on Orthodoxy in America, both past and present. I was honored to play a small role in creating the atlas, writing two articles, compiling...

The Atlas of American Orthodox Christian Churches

Editor's note: We've received the following announcement from Alexei Krindatch, the Orthodox researcher and sociologist. Very soon, the first-ever Atlas of American Orthodox Christian Churches, edited by Krindatch, will be published by Holy Cross Orthodox Press. I have made several contributions to the Atlas, including the historical census data, a...

Clergy salaries in 1916

Before I get started, I wanted to let you all know that I do plan to finish my series on St. Raphael and the Syrian controversies of 1905. However, I've got several other irons in the fire, so I'm going to take a little time off of that project to...