Orthodoxy in America Has a Convert Problem

· Fr. Photius Avant
The Orthodox Church in the United States has problems. One of the problems the Orthodox Church currently suffers in this country is a lack of converts. There are other problems as well: overlapping jurisdictions, lack of communication across jurisdictional lines, and a tendency to isolate ourselves from communities in which we live. But it is our lack of converts that strikes me…

Review of “Orthodox Christianity Volume IV: The Worship and Liturgical Life of the Orthodox Church” by Metropolitan Hilarion Alfeyev

· Fr. Gregory Winsky
ORTHODOX CHRISTIANITY VOLUME IV: THE WORSHIP AND LITURGICAL LIFE OF THE ORTHODOX CHURCH. By Metropolitan Hilarion Alfeyev. Yonkers: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2016. 382 pp. ISBN-13: 978-0-88141-522-0. In this fourth volume of his encyclopedic work Orthodox Christianity, Metropolitan Hilarion (Alfeyev) of Volokolamsk has provided especially for us Orthodox Christians in America what just may be the most readable, comprehensive, and informative book on…

Orthodox Theologies of the Afterlife: Review of “The Departure of the Soul”

· Paul Ladouceur
Editor’s Note: The following is a review of The Departure of the Soul According to the Teaching of the Orthodox Church, published April 2017 by St. Anthony’s Greek Orthodox Monastery, Florence, Arizona. It was sent to us by Dr. Paul Ladouceur originally as four separate posts, but we have combined them here into one, since they are closely related and also since…

Utah’s Largest Newspaper Interviews Mormon to Orthodox Christian Convert

· Cameron Davis
Editor’s Note: A couple of weeks back, a reporter at the Salt Lake Tribune contacted us on the O&H Facebook page to get in touch with former Mormons (LDS) who had converted to Orthodoxy. One of those who responded to this inquiry was Cameron Davis. He was one of several interviewed for this piece (which is well worth reading). Like all newspaper…

Philosophy According to Christ: Were the Fathers ‘Corrupted’ by Greek Philosophy?

· Dylan Pahman
It is a recurring popular trope, especially in some Protestant circles, to dismiss the Church Fathers on the grounds that they were “seduced” or “corrupted” by Greek philosophy and that their understanding of the faith displays the cultural milieu of the day, rather than proper biblical exegesis. Even many scholars have claimed that attempting to read the Bible as the Fathers did…

Two Surprising Statistics about Orthodox Christianity in America

· Seraphim Danckaert
Plenty has been written about the Pew Research Center’s second Religious Landscape Study, published in 2014. Relatively little commentary has focused on what the findings tell us about Orthodox Christians in America. In part, the lack of attention is due to the very small sample size of Orthodox believers in the study — so small that the margin for error is somewhere…

A Helpful, But Uneven Contribution: Review of “The Benedict Option” by Rod Dreher

· Rev. Fr. Joseph Lucas
On April 2, 2017, Rod Dreher’s The Benedict Option debuted at number seven for hardcover non-fiction on the New York Times’ bestseller list (promptly to drop from the list the following week). This new offering from Dreher is a summary of his life experience, a sort of manifesto for the conservative Christian seeking meaning in a world inundated by progressive agendas, commercialism,…

Ed Stetzer on Hanegraaff Switch: What CT Gets Wrong About Orthodox Conversions

· Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick
Writing in Evangelical flagship publication Christianity Today, Ed Stetzer, who is a professor at Wheaton and heads up the Billy Graham Center for Evangelism, made some guesses about why Evangelicals become Orthodox Christians in “Hank Hanegraaff’s Switch to Eastern Orthodoxy, Why People Make Such Changes, and Four Ways Evangelicals Might Respond“: The obvious question is what draws evangelicals to more liturgical traditions—and…

Revised & Expanded O&H on Pre-Order + New Podcast in the Works

· Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick
Hello, blog readers and email list subscribers! I just wanted to give you a couple quick updates in case you hadn’t yet heard: — The revised, expanded edition of Orthodoxy and Heterodoxy: Finding the Way to Christ in a Complicated Religious Landscape is now available for pre-order. Wondering what’s new? Read all about that here. Click here to place your order and…