Journey to Orthodoxy

Any person’s conversion is by nature an individual and idiosyncratic journey, and Mr. Oren’s reflected not only his visceral sense that Orthodoxy had a “core of holy tradition” but his intense concern over theological concepts like giving the Eucharist to baptized infants, which may not animate other believers quite the same way.

Yet in its broader outlines, his movement from the Protestant realm into the Orthodox one, specifically into the Antiochian branch, attests to a significant and fascinating example of denominational migration. Over the last 20 years, the Antiochian Orthodox Church — with its roots in Syria and Lebanon and its longtime membership in America made up almost entirely of Middle Eastern immigrants and their descendants — has become the destination of choice for thousands of Protestants of Northern European ancestry.

The visible shift began in 1987 with the conversion of nearly 2,000 evangelical Christians, led by Peter E. Gillquist and other alumni of the Dallas Theological Seminary and the Campus Crusade for Christ. More recently, a wave of converts has arrived from such mainline Protestant denominations as the Episcopalian and Lutheran.

Some 70 percent of Antiochian Orthodox priests in the United States are converts, according to Bradley Nassif, who, as a professor of Bible and theology at North Park University in Chicago, is one of the nation’s leading scholars of the religion. A generation or two ago, Professor Nassif said, converts made up barely 10 percent of Antiochian clergy.

Professor Nassif went so far, in a 2007 article in Christianity Today magazine, as to suggest that the 21st century might become the “Orthodox century” as disenchanted Protestants grew attracted to the historical roots, theological rigor and social conservatism of the Eastern Christian denominations.

Whether or not the prediction pans out, it is certainly true that no American convert comes to the Antiochian church by convenience or ease. The denomination has only about 250,000 members in 250 congregations in the country, Professor Nassif estimated. Worshippers stand during most of the two-hour Divine Liturgy each Sunday. Nearly half the days in the year require fasting from meat, dairy, eggs and most fish.

Yet when Mr. Oren and his family joined Holy Cross, they found kindred spirits in more ways than one. The church’s pastor, Father Gregory Mathewes-Green, had left the Episcopal ministry to convert. His wife, Frederica Mathewes-Green, had written perhaps the definitive book on the subject, “Facing East: A Pilgrim’s Journey Into the Mysteries of Orthodoxy” (HarperOne 2006).
Alienated by what he called “spiritual and theological chaos and moral confusion” in the Episcopal church, Father Mathewes-Green, 62, started Holy Cross in early 1993 with 19 members, five of them from his own family. When he formally renounced his Episcopal vows, he lost not only his annual salary but the rectory that was his home.

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