Author: Matthew Namee
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Under-30 American Orthodox Priests Are Disappearing
A few weeks ago, I published some preliminary data from a study I’m conducting on the ordination ages of American Orthodox priests, as well as the waiting period between convert priests’ conversions and their ordinations. Since publishing those articles, I’ve expanded my sample considerably. Today, I am sharing some updated data. I now have ordination…
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How long do converts wait before ordination?
Last week, I wrote about the ordination ages of American Orthodox priests. In that article, I made some preliminary observations about the length of time converts to Orthodoxy wait before ordination to the priesthood — but I only had waiting period data for 47 convert priests. Since then, I’ve expanded that to 111 priests, which…
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How old are American Orthodox priests at ordination?
A few weeks ago, I published some data about American Orthodox bishops, including the fact that 58% of bishops in American Orthodox history were ordained to the priesthood before they turned thirty — this, despite the fact that the canons require a minimum age of thirty for priestly ordination. Today, I will dig deeper into…
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Statistics on Celibate & Widower Bishops in American Orthodoxy
I have a list of 213 Orthodox bishops who have served in America. Of these, 179 were never married (we’ll call them “celibates”), and the other 34 were widowers. So 84% celibates, 16% widowers. (Two of the “widowers” are special cases, because they were widowed before they joined the clergy, so they never served as…
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Widower Bishops in American Orthodox History
Everyone knows that Orthodoxy doesn’t allow married men to become bishops. This is kind of a live issue here in America, because a lot of our jurisdictions have trouble finding qualified episocopal candidates, while excellent priests are ineligible if they are married. I wouldn’t hold my breath for a revival of the married episcopate, for…
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The Equal of Martyrdom: An Audio Documentary on Fr. Nicola Yanney
Back in October, I was honored to be part of a pilgrimage in Kearney, Nebraska to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the holy death of Fr. Nicola Yanney. My good friend and fellow SOCHA founder, Fr. Andrew Damick, was also present at the pilgrimage. He came on behalf of Ancient Faith Radio, with the ultimate…
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The Nine Years That Almost Destroyed the Orthodox Church: 1925
Here are links to the previous articles in this series on the global Orthodox crisis of 1917-25: 1917 1918 1919 1920 1921 1922 1923 1924 By 1925, following his near-assassination, Patriarch Tikhon’s health was in serious decline. Among other things, his heart was failing, and he suffered from severe inflammation of the mouth. In December…
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The Nine Years That Almost Destroyed the Orthodox Church: 1924
Here are links to the previous articles in this series on the global Orthodox crisis of 1917-25: 1917 1918 1919 1920 1921 1922 1923 In Poland, between 1918 and 1924, some 400 Orthodox churches were confiscated by the Polish government, and others were destroyed. Among these, the Polish Orthodox Christians lost St. Alexander Nevsky Cathedral…
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The Nine Years That Almost Destroyed the Orthodox Church: 1923
Here are links to the previous articles in this series on the global Orthodox crisis of 1917-25: 1917 1918 1919 1920 1921 1922 As we begin 1923, just by way of reminder: Patriarch Tikhon of Moscow was under house arrest, and while the famine in Russia was receding somewhat, people were still starving. In Syria,…
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The Prestige of the Ecumenical Patriarchate
Editor’s note: Yesterday, I continued my series on the global Orthodox crisis of 1917-25, focusing on 1922. One of the many major events that year was the Ecumenical Patriarch Meletios Metaxakis’ recognition of Anglican holy orders. In the mid-1940s, Fr. Kyrill Johnson, who knew Meletios personally, wrote about this “recognition” and the patriarchate of Meletios…