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A wave of young men entering Orthodox Christian parishes has drawn national attention, but inside the Church lie anxieties about theological distortion and a struggle to safeguard tradition amid a mounting “internet Orthodoxy.”
On Nov. 19, The New York Times published an article about U.S. Orthodox Christianity’s “surge” of young, conservative male converts. The piece has received mixed reviews from Orthodox Christian readers.
> Read: The NYT’s article “Orthodox church pews are overflowing with converts”
Dr. George Demacopoulos, who serves as Co-Director of Fordham University’s Orthodox Christian Studies Center, shared that he was both “both encouraged and frustrated” by the reporting.
“The ‘Orthodoxy as masculinity’ narrative … grossly misrepresents the Orthodox tradition,” Demacopoulos said.
Demacopoulos responded to the Times article in a piece published by Public Orthodoxy, clarifying his concern isn’t so much that the Times reported these trends, but that it did so “without acknowledging that the ‘Orthodoxy as Masculinity’ narrative is consistently rejected by Church leaders and scholars because it is so blatantly misaligned with the Church’s theology and history.”
He argues proponents of the “Orthodoxy as masculinity” narrative are “selling a myth,” seeking to “remake the Church in ways that align to a preconceived social and political agenda that do not map onto an ancient faith like Orthodox Christianity.”
> Read: Public Orthodoxy’s article “The ‘Orthodoxy as Masculinity’ Narrative”
Demacopoulos’s concerns are shared by Fr. Gary Kyriacou, who serves as Dean of the Cathedral of Saint Sophia in Los Angeles. Fr. Gary responded to the Times article in a series of videos shared on Saint Sophia social media platforms.
“I’m thrilled that Orthodoxy is being discussed,” Fr. Gary said in an interview for the Orthodox Observer. “But we have to .. stand up for our faith and our tradition.”
He shared feeling a responsibility to ensure his parishioners know the Cathedral of Saint Sophia is not a parish that teaches “masculinity, submissiveness to women, that feminism is wrong.”
“The Orthodox Church is all-inclusive,” Fr. Gary said. “Let’s make sure that we tell the entire truth of what the Church is.”
> Watch: Fr. Gary responds to the Times article
U.S. hierarchs also discussed the matter in recent days.
At the annual meeting of the Assembly of Canonical Orthodox Bishops of the United States of America, bishops expressed joy at the “flood” of converts, while also recognizing the challenges these conversions bring.
“We have a duty and responsibility to prepare our faithful,” His Eminence Archbishop Elpidophoros of America said. “There is a tide coming our way.”
In an interview with the Orthodox Observer, Archbishop Elpidophoros emphasized that Orthodoxy’s growth in the U.S. will be authentic “only if it is catholic in the true sense: open to every person whom God sends to us.”
Archbishop Elpidophoros says this is why the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America has not been content to merely preserve a Greek enclave, but has worked to “welcome and evangelize new brothers and sisters” through Spanish-language ministries and the Apostolic Mission to the African Diaspora in the Americas, West Indies, and Caribbean.
“In all of this, we are trying to show that the Archdiocese is not a closed club for one ethnicity, but the living Body of Christ in the United States, embracing every race, every language, and every neighborhood,” Archbishop Elpidophoros said.
His Eminence Metropolitan Saba of the Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese of North America led the conversation at the Assembly’s meeting.
> Read: Metropolitan Saba’s presentation on converts to Orthodoxy
Characterizing conversion to Orthodoxy as “not so much an event as a journey and a process,” Metropolitan Saba stressed the need for converts’ ongoing guidance and “long-term rootedness in Orthodoxy.”
He urged his fellow hierarchs to recognize the “pressing need” to “translate doctrine into pastoral care,” particularly given that many converts are “psychologically, emotionally, or socially wounded” and thus require “experienced and mature spiritual fathers.”
“We must respond to this urgent challenge both prudently and swiftly,” Metropolitan Saba said. “There is a danger that we rejoice in numbers and forget that conversion is a lifetime process of repentance, not numerical recruitment.”
Following their conversation, the Assembly tasked its Theological Education Committee with the creation of “common and agreed content for catechesis.”
> Previously: Assembly of Bishops discusses the reception of converts
Orthodox scholars echo calls for mindful education of converts.
“If we don’t monitor what kind of catechism is taking place in our parishes, we will be inviting major problems down the line,” Demacopoulos said.
A multifaceted approach to religious education, including catechesis informed by theologians, educators, and social scientists as well as clergy and hierarchs, may be particularly important in light of the “internet Orthodoxy” phenomenon.
“Clergy in the Greek Orthodox world … were not always trained for catechizing men who spent ten years in dark corners of the internet before they ever crossed the threshold,” reflected Fr. Evagoras Constantinides, Dean of Saints Constantine and Helen Greek Orthodox Cathedral of Brooklyn.
Dr. Sarah Riccardi-Swartz, a professor of religion and anthropology at Northeastern University, identifies a “crisis of authority” associated with Orthodox content creators.
“By promoting themselves as educators and guides,” Riccardi-Swartz said, they endanger the “locus of hierarchical authority in the Church.”
> Read: Riccardi-Swartz’s work Between Heaven and Russia
Metropolitan Saba corroborates this concern, asserting that converts introduced to Orthodoxy via social media may encounter “an Orthodoxy that is not always authoritative or theologically sound.”
“The open space allows anyone to speak about anything,” Metropolitan Saba said.
“I have witnessed numerous Antiochian male converts who are social media content creators with hundreds of thousands of social media followers praise Hitler, berate women, mock disabled people and more,” Riccardi-Swartz said. “This is not a wave of men seeking Christ but rather seeking their own vainglory through digital Orthodoxy.”
Clergy emphasize that when offering pastoral care to converts, priests must use discernment when it comes to chrismation or baptism.
“When somebody comes and … they’re looking for an answer to a temporary question, then I make them wait,” Fr. Gary said.
Fr. Evagoras also stresses the need to take seriously concerns of “racism, white nationalism, or a settled contempt for women.”
“That is not a side issue,” Fr. Evagoras said. “That is a spiritual infection.”
According to Fr. Evagoras, inquirers need to hear from their first meeting that such views have “no place in the mind of Christ.”
“The Church can walk with a person who is fighting these sins,” Fr. Evagoras said. “The Church cannot allow those sins to set the tone of parish life.”
Meanwhile, lay faithful call for continued engagement from hierarchs.
“We need Orthodox leadership to wrestle with these questions,” Riccardi-Swartz said. “Why are far-right people attracted to Orthodoxy? What do they believe the Church offers that supports their worldviews?”
If our Church fails to face these challenges, it risks alienating other faithful. According to Demacopoulos, women are among those most at risk.
“Young women are leaving the Church in record numbers,” he said, describing a phenomenon termed the “silent schism” by Orthodox scholar Carrie Frederick Frost.
> Read: Frederick Frost’s work Church of Our Granddaughters
Riccardi-Swartz affirmed the impact of far-right converts on our community’s women.
“I regularly receive emails, DMs, and communication from women—young and old—who tell me about the young male converts in their communities who are ‘scary’ and ‘misogynistic,’” Riccardi-Swartz said.
Demacopoulos reflected that while the departure of any woman from the Church is tragic in its own right, the trend is even more saddening because early Christianity was “largely a women’s movement—the first movement in the history of the world that proclaimed the inherent dignity of women.”
Fr. Evagoras also warns of the danger of Orthodoxy’s distortion.
“When a loud group takes their own ideas and wraps them in icons and cassocks, they may sound ‘more Orthodox’ than the bishop or the parish priest. They use the language of purity, but the center is still their own will. ” Fr. Evagoras said.
“That is very close to what the Church has always called heresy: picking your own way and selling it as the way of the Church.”
Protecting against this distortion, Fr. Evagoras says, necessitates a deliberate response on the Church’s part, consisting of bishops, priests, and lay leaders guiding catechumens for years, not months; creating “clear guidelines about hate‑based ideologies,” and ensuring conversion is viewed as a parish responsibility, carried by all “with fear and with love.”
“If we avoid that work,” Fr. Evagoras said, then “the risk is real.”
“The words and the vestments will look Orthodox, but something else will be driving the bus. And once that happens, it is very hard to get the wheel back.”
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