The Biggest Pan-Orthodox Event in American History

In 1963, between 11,000 and 13,000 Orthodox youth, from seven jurisdictions, came together for a pan-Orthodox festival in Pittsburgh. Ten bishops and more than 150 priests celebrated Vespers in an arena, and a thousand-person pan-Orthodox youth choir sang. This was the biggest pan-Orthodox event in American history, and most Orthodox...

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...

Widower Bishops in American Orthodox History

Metropolitan Leonty Turkevich, 1952 (Los Angeles Daily News) Everyone knows that Orthodoxy doesn't allow married men to become bishops. This is kind of a live issue here in America, because a lot of our jurisdictions have trouble finding qualified episocopal candidates, while excellent priests are ineligible if they are married....

The Nine Years That Almost Destroyed the Orthodox Church: 1925

Here are links to the previous articles in this series on the global Orthodox crisis of 1917-25: 19171918191919201921192219231924 Ecumenical Patriarch Constantine VI By 1925, following his near-assassination, Patriarch Tikhon’s health was in serious decline. Among other things, his heart was failing, and he suffered from severe inflammation of the mouth....

The Nine Years That Almost Destroyed the Orthodox Church: 1924

Here are links to the previous articles in this series on the global Orthodox crisis of 1917-25: 1917191819191920192119221923 Lenin's artificially-preserved body, set up by Stalin as an imitation of incorrupt Orthodox saints In Poland, between 1918 and 1924, some 400 Orthodox churches were confiscated by the Polish government, and others...

The Nine Years That Almost Destroyed the Orthodox Church: 1923

Here are links to the previous articles in this series on the global Orthodox crisis of 1917-25: 191719181919192019211922 As we begin 1923, just by way of reminder: Patriarch Tikhon of Moscow was under house arrest, and while the famine in Russia was receding somewhat, people were still starving. In Syria,...