>Conversions gradually transforming Orthodox Christianity
>More than 70 percent of the roughly 75,000 Antiochian Orthodox Christians in the United States are converts. The Orthodox Church in America, with roots in Moscow and about 85,000 adherents, reports a 50 percent figure. In Greek Orthodox Christianity, by far the largest branch in the United States with almost 480,000 members, it's about 25 percent.
>"We have these ethnic titles in our names, but they refer to where our hierarchies reside," Gilbert says. "None of these [jurisdictions] believes the church is for Greeks or Russians or Serbs. It's a church for humans."
>The strength of Orthodox Christianity— also known as Eastern Christianity, Eastern Orthodoxy or Greek Orthodoxy — stems from the conviction that its traditions are the same as those practiced by Jesus' original followers, the 12 apostles, and the theologians who codified those practices in their writings over the first few centuries after his death.
baltimoresun.com