Orthodox churches are filling up in the USA in record numbers, as pointed out by a recent article in the “New York Times”. Certain characteristics are overrepresented among American converts to Orthodoxy: they belong and are predominantly male; For the new generations in the US, Orthodoxy is part of the “androsphere” (manosphere), i.e. the cultural suggestions for intensity of masculinity.
In youth slang, male converts are called “Orthobros” (Orthodox brothers). The “Orthobros” abhor the “sophisticated” character of other Christian confessions and are attracted to Orthodoxy by the difficult nature of the exercise. According to the Pew Research Center, over 60% of Orthodox in the US are men compared to just 46% for Evangelicals. The Orthodox are 24% young people under 30, while the Evangelicals are only 14%. Similar applies to the analogies with Roman Catholics.
Fewer middle-aged, more young
THE George Dimakopoulosprofessor of Orthodox Christian Studies at Fordham University (New York), tells “Vima” that “Orthobros-type phenomena appear more in the “echo chambers” (echo chambers) of the Internet, in social media and forums, such as Reddit, where a hyperaggressiveness develops. The “Orthobros” are most fond of the “Orthodox Church in America” (OCA), which originates from the Russian mission/diaspora, as well as the Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese. We must consider that a large proportion of Americans who have been raised Orthodox no longer identify as Orthodox by the age of 40, up to 30%. The majority of them are women, with the result that in the overall picture the parishes have fewer middle-aged women and more young men”.
“The Orthodox Church provides a symbolism for each: as the “body of Christ” it is “masculine”, while as the “nymph of Christ” it is “female”” says in “Vima” o Timothy CarrollResearch Fellow in Anthropology at University College London. “Of more interest are the statistics that show an abundance of conversions of African-Americans to Orthodoxy, as well as people of African descent from the English-speaking regions of the Caribbean”.
Hybrid parish-internet communities
Among the scientific studies on the phenomenon, her work deserves mention Sarah Riccardi-Schwartzprofessor of Anthropology at Northeastern University (Boston), with title Between Heaven and Russia: Religious Conversion and Political Apostasy in Appalachia (Between Heaven and Russia: Religious Conversion and Political Apostasy in Appalachia, Fordham University Press, 2022).
She explains to “Vima” that “a significant part of converts finds in Orthodoxy a “political home”, in the sense of a community founded on the traditional heteronormative family. Converts are generally against her rights, while sometimes they are anti-Semitic. The problem is that when converts flood certain communities, they performatively transform them into the image they had in mind in the first place. Today, Orthodox communities are hybrid: in local parishes and online communities. The online activity of the converts is focused on setting up online meetings where they discuss traditional values”.
In this way, meetings on the Internet are an extension of parish life, but conversely, parish life is affected by the ideological agenda that is more easily developed on the Internet.
“Exercise Warriors”
A thorough scientific study of the phenomenon is the work The Dramatic Journey of Faith: Orthodox Religious Conversion in America (Sebastian Press, 2024, published in Greek by En Plo Publications as “The Dramatic Journey of Faith: Orthodox Conversions in America”).
Its author, Father Vassilios Thermospsychiatrist, former professor of the Supreme Ecclesiastical Academy of Athens, summarizes in “Vima” some of the findings of a research that examines a total of 150 cases: “For a large part, the main motivation is the search for truth; the fact that they were not convinced by their previous confession, either because it was too liberal to the point of evaporating faith in Christ, or because it was too fundamentalist or legalistic so that the essence of the Christian message was lost. Many in America now listen to podcasts, watch videos or meet the Orthodox in person. The intellectually developed are excited by the depth of Orthodox Theology. The more empiricists find Orthodoxy through the beauty of liturgy and chanting. Two important individual developments are that African-American converts are increasing and that many converts are now Orthodox priests. “Orthodox exercise often gives young men a mental satisfaction that they are fighters.”.
In the 150 personal narratives of the book there is a wide variety of stories. A veteran of the war in Afghanistan who broke down mentally and physically until he cried out to God. An elder who, as a child, had witnessed a mass murder at a US school. A Fine Arts student who, being at an Orthodox service, felt that “I was very small in something big that exceeds me and I decided to surrender to it”.
Between the ages of 18-23 we often find young people who have gone through a dark adolescence, borderline personalities who may have been through many religious groups, inclined to the occult and witchcraft, turned to drug use, or had suicidal thoughts. However, there are also elderly converts, such as the former Lutheran pastor who, at 70, humbly enjoys his life as a simple believer.
Young people seeking a traditional “masculine religiosity” do not occupy a significant portion of the cases in the book. Fr. Thermos acknowledges that it is an existing phenomenon, but without presuming a large numerical magnitude. Although religious conversions can subsequently be subsumed into culture wars such as between and , their motivations are usually deeper.
According to Fr. Thermos, the most important are the fatigue from a spirit of nihilism, relativism and consumerism, as well as traumas due to the deterioration of the family and abuse. “Converts are usually people looking for healing, or even a breather”.
Symbols for each call
The sharp contradictions of American society meet an Orthodoxy with an abundance of religious symbolism for every use. Is this exposure to a market where gender performance is still a lifestyle? Or to seek inspiration from the beginnings of Christianity? In hybrid parish and online communities, the future holds surprises.
However, the past of Orthodoxy can also hold surprises for those converts who eventually find on their journey back in time something different from what they had originally imagined.
