EGN NEWS DESK
Most American church buildings navigated the patchwork of COVID-19 restrictions on public gatherings by periodically closing their doorways and broadcasting companies on-line as an alternative.
But for nearly half of U.S. Orthodox Christians, whose liturgy entails processions, incense, kissing icons and crosses and receiving Communion from a shared spoon and chalice, liturgical companies continued for anybody eager to attend in particular person, in line with a brand new examine of how the denomination weathered the pandemic.
The new examine finds that Orthodox church buildings general have been reluctant to embrace digital worship in comparison with all spiritual congregations. By spring 2023, 75% of all U.S. congregations offered distant choices in comparison with solely 53% of Orthodox church buildings.
Fewer on-line choices seemingly contributed to the numerous drop in Orthodox church participation in the course of the pandemic in 2021, however in comparison with different U.S. congregations which can be on common 8% under pre-COVID-19 attendance, Orthodox church buildings had recovered in-person attendance on common by spring 2023.
At the identical time, Orthodox church buildings general have seen a drop in volunteer participation, from 40% in 2020 to 25% in 2023, in comparison with 40% and 35% in all U.S. congregations.
The Orthodox tendency to “ignore” the pandemic has produced a “combined bag,” mentioned analysis launched Thursday (Aug. 22) by the Hartford Institute for Religion Research and Alexei Krindatch, nationwide coordinator of the U.S. Census of Orthodox Christian Churches. Orthodox church buildings within the U.S. are extra seemingly than different spiritual congregations to have gained members throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, even whereas scuffling with declines in participation and volunteering.
Using survey information from 2020 by means of 2023, the examine discovered 44% of Orthodox church buildings remained open throughout the pandemic, in comparison with simply 12% of all U.S. congregations. Only 31% of Orthodox monks publicly inspired parishioners to get vaccinated in comparison with 62% of all clergy.
“They have been making an attempt to keep away from conflicts,” mentioned Krindatch, the examine’s lead researcher, who has printed earlier reviews on how the pandemic impacted Orthodox Christians.
There isn’t any single Orthodox Church within the U.S. Instead, a number of jurisdictions — the biggest are the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese, the Orthodox Church in America and the Antiochian Orthodox Archdiocese — are administered independently of each other and exist facet by facet, sharing the identical teachings and in full communion with each other. Many Orthodox parishes mix a number of immigrant teams and their descendants, from Russians and Ukrainians to Arabs and Greeks, in addition to converts from different faiths and denominations.
Bishops offered pandemic steering to the monks serving them, reminiscent of whether or not to require masking or not, usually throughout a swath of states that clashed on masking and lockdown mandates. Priests then selected whether or not and find out how to comply with or adapt that steering to their particular circumstances, typically casting doubt on the bishop’s authority.
“I figured individuals are going to make their very own medical choices (in regards to the vaccine),” mentioned one Orthodox priest who participated within the survey, the Rev. Lawrence Margitich of St. Seraphim of Sarov Cathedral in Santa Rosa, California, a parish of the Orthodox Church of America. “I’m the priest. What do I learn about that stuff?”
Margitich mentioned his church has grown from about 80 folks on a Sunday morning within the pre-pandemic months of 2020 to about 180 folks right this moment. To scale back the unfold of the coronavirus, in 2020, the church moved companies to its out of doors courtyard with an amplified sound system. Then in August 2020, smoke from a serious wildfire pushed them again inside.
During that double disaster, through which a whole lot of native houses burned to the bottom, folks started displaying as much as St. Seraphim.
“They began considering extra about everlasting realities, I suppose, and their life on this world,” mentioned Margitich.
According to a number of Orthodox clergy who’ve spoken to RNS, the pandemic lockdowns offered extra time at house to browse the Internet and self-reflect, main many religious seekers to return throughout Orthodoxy for the primary time throughout a proliferation of English-language sources on-line after which go to a neighborhood church.
This yr, St. Seraphim of Sarov Cathedral has skilled extra baptisms than ever earlier than in Margitich’s 27-year profession, he mentioned, with 20 folks catechized within the spring and 20 extra within the strategy of conversion.
An earlier report by Krindatch concluded that whereas most Orthodox church buildings within the U.S. shrank a mean of 15% in common attendees from 2020 to 2022, 1 in 5 parishes as an alternative grew their membership and in-person attendance by 20%. The rising parishes are usually those who not solely remained open for in-person worship throughout the pandemic, but additionally did not supply on-line worship, have a better share of converts and have larger unity of opinions, amongst different components.
By spring 2023, 15% of the members of a median Orthodox parish have been newcomers who had joined because the begin of the pandemic in 2020, in comparison with solely 10% amongst different U.S. spiritual congregations, the most recent examine confirmed.
“It is a statistically important distinction,” Krindatch mentioned. “But there are greater variations between Orthodox jurisdictions. People have been undoubtedly searching for anywhere they might be part of.”
The Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia, generally referred to as ROCOR and regarded essentially the most conservative jurisdiction, picked up considerably extra members than the Orthodox Church of America, which in flip picked up greater than the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese, in line with Krindatch’s information.
The Rev. Luke Veronis of Sts. Constantine and Helen Greek Orthodox Church in Webster, Massachusetts, close to the Connecticut border, referred to as the pandemic a “constructive” expertise for his parish, regardless of describing his congregation as “extraordinarily divided” politically, with each progressives and Donald Trump loyalists, who he refers to as “a household.” The COVID-19 restrictions pushed the church to livestream companies and meet on Zoom, options they’ve continued to supply for liturgies and Bible research alongside the in-person gatherings.
Veronis’ church additionally skilled atypical development, from 150 common month-to-month attendees in 2019 to about 220 right this moment, he mentioned. Most joined throughout the pandemic and are younger adults underneath the age of 35. Many of the Greek Orthodox church buildings in New England are both declining or struggling to stay open, whereas solely a handful are rising.
“The key to our success is we have created a really welcoming church,” mentioned Veronis, who additionally teaches a category about cultivating “missions-minded” parishes at Hellenic College and Holy Cross Orthodox School of Theology in Brookline, Massachusetts. “I at all times preach to my folks, our church welcomes all people … however then, after all, the problem for everyone is when you come into the church, all of us are on a journey of change and transformation. So do not come along with your agendas.”
He calls the surge in membership some church buildings are experiencing “each a blessing and a curse.”
“One of the actual challenges we within the Orthodox Church are going to have is we now have lots of people coming into our church now, particularly younger males,” he mentioned. While expressing gratitude for the lads who’ve discovered his parish, he added, “I might be afraid if a few of these males went to another Orthodox church buildings, the place the monks themselves have given in to those ideological wars and these monks would simply feed into what these males are already searching for, the right-wing, excessive craziness.”
The examine is a part of a nationwide mixed-methods challenge titled Exploring the Pandemic Impact on Congregations and funded by the Lily Endowment that’s investigating adjustments to congregational life ensuing from COVID-19. Faith Communities Today offered 2020 survey information of over 15,000 congregations on the pre-pandemic congregational panorama.
The subsequent survey in November 2024 will comply with up on most of the similar themes to look at how the pandemic’s impacts proceed to alter how congregations function and gather views from not simply clergy but additionally lay individuals.
© Religion News Service
