Greek Orthodoxy and the Ethnic Revival

2020 ◽  
pp. 140-160
Author(s):  
Alexander Kitroeff
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Exponential Growth ◽  
Orthodox Church ◽  
Immigration Reform ◽  
Greek Language ◽  
Greek Orthodox ◽  
Greek Orthodox Church ◽  
White Ethnic ◽  
Greek Americans ◽  
Parish Priests

This chapter discusses how the Greek Orthodox Church dealt with the era of ethnic revival that legitimized European white ethnic identities, including that of Greek Americans. It highlights the controversy Archbishop Iakovo generated when he decreed that parish priests could perform parts of the Sunday liturgy in Greek. It talks about Archbishop Iakovos message to Greek Americans of how most of them were now more comfortable with the English rather than the Greek language and how that development should be reflected in practice. The chapter mentions how Greek Americans experienced the most sustained revival of their identity of all the European “ethnics” due to a big influx of immigrants from Greece in the wake of the immigration reform of 1965. It discusses the exponential growth of Greek presence in the New York borough of Queens, especially in the Astoria section that became a “Greektown,”

Introduction

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-16
Author(s):  
Alexander Kitroeff
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
The United States ◽  
American Identity ◽  
Orthodox Church ◽  
Greek Language ◽  
Greek Orthodox ◽  
Eastern Orthodoxy ◽  
Greek Orthodox Church ◽  
Language Schools ◽  
Greek Americans

This chapter provides an account of the Greek Orthodox Church's interrelationship with the Greek Americans throughout the twentieth century. It analyzes the Orthodox Church in the United States that plays a determining role in community affairs not seen anywhere else, such as its control of Greek-language schools. It also establishes the hegemony of the Greek Orthodox Church over the Greek American community. This chapter argues that the Greek Orthodox Church helped shape Greek American identity throughout the twentieth century and did so by adapting to the steady Americanization of the Greek Americans. It also reaches beyond the domain of Eastern Orthodoxy in America as it illustrates the way a relatively small, ethnically rooted religion can survive in the wider religious marketplace of America.

The Greek Orthodox Church in America

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexander Kitroeff
Keyword(s):  
Focal Point ◽  
The United States ◽  
Orthodox Church ◽  
Greek Language ◽  
Greek Orthodox ◽  
American Institution ◽  
Greek Orthodox Church ◽  
Language Schools ◽  
Greek Immigrants ◽  
The Church

This sweeping history shows how the Greek Orthodox Church in America has functioned as much more than a religious institution, becoming the focal point in the lives of the country's million-plus Greek immigrants and their descendants. Assuming the responsibility of running Greek-language schools and encouraging local parishes to engage in cultural and social activities, the church became the most important Greek American institution and shaped the identity of Greeks in the United States. The book digs into these traditional activities, highlighting the American church's dependency on the “mother church,” the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Constantinople, and the use of Greek language in the Sunday liturgy. Today, as this rich biography of the church shows us, Greek Orthodoxy remains in between the Old World and the New, both Greek and American.

The Challenges for an American Greek Orthodoxy

2020 ◽  
pp. 203-227
Author(s):  
Alexander Kitroeff
Keyword(s):  
Small Town ◽  
Russian Orthodox ◽  
Orthodox Church ◽  
Greek Orthodox ◽  
Russian Orthodox Church ◽  
Orthodox Christian ◽  
Evangelical Protestantism ◽  
Greek Orthodox Church ◽  
Conference Center ◽  
Western Pennsylvania

This chapter draws attention to Ligonier, a small town in western Pennsylvania with a population of about fifteen hundred that served as an unlikely site for where the future of Greek Orthodoxy in America would be decided. It describes Ligonier as a home to the Antiochian Village and Conference Center, which is administered by the Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese of America. The chapter discusses the Antiochian Church, which had begun its existence in America under the auspices of the Russian Orthodox Church and had suffered internal divisions similar to those that Greek Orthodoxy faced in the 1920s. It investigates how the Antiochian Church was unified under the jurisdiction of the Greek Orthodox Church of Antioch based in Damascus, Syria. It also highlights the Arab Orthodox immigrants that were members of the Antiochian Church and explains how they admitted a number of converts from evangelical Protestantism in the 1980s.

Assimilation and Respectability in the 1950s

2020 ◽  
pp. 95-114
Author(s):  
Alexander Kitroeff
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
The United States ◽  
Eastern Orthodox ◽  
Orthodox Church ◽  
Greek Orthodox ◽  
Postwar America ◽  
Religious Identification ◽  
Greek Orthodox Church ◽  
The 1950S ◽  
The Cold War

This chapter examines the Greek Orthodox Church against the background of the 1950s. It highlights the rise in religiosity and the upward social mobility of the Greek American second generation. It also explains how the Greek Orthodox church, which was on the margins of conversations about religion in America, found ways to become more relevant and somewhat mainstream. The chapter analyzes the unexpected development and importance of the Eastern Orthodox Churches to the Cold War policies of the United States. It also looks into the combination of powerful causes, such as the Cold War, social dislocation in suburbia, anxieties of the atomic age, and deliberate religious marketing that led to a remarkable spread of religious identification in postwar America.

Church and Patriarchate and the Limits of Americanization

2020 ◽  
pp. 228-246
Author(s):  
Alexander Kitroeff
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
The State ◽  
The Other ◽  
Eastern Orthodox ◽  
Orthodox Church ◽  
Greek Orthodox ◽  
New Era ◽  
Greek Orthodox Church ◽  
The Church

This chapter focuses on the state of Greek Orthodoxy in America at the end of the twentieth century. It assesses whether the Church under Archbishop Iakovos overreached in its efforts to Americanize, which alienated the Ecumenical Patriarchate. It analyzes the patriarchate's intervention, which illustrated the administrative limits the Greek Orthodox Church in America faces in its efforts to assimilate. The chapter describes the patriarchate's ability to invoke the transnational character of Orthodoxy in the new era of globalization. It explores the end of the evolution of Greek Orthodoxy into some form of American Orthodoxy through its fusion with the other Eastern Orthodox Churches.

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