Greek Orthodoxy in America Enters the Twenty-First Century

This chapter examines how Archbishop Iakovos's successor, Archbishop Spyridon, made a mistake on the side of tradition. It illustrates the limits and potential drawbacks of Greek Orthodoxy's reliance on invoking its history. It also explains how the patriarchate recovered the lost ground by appointing Demetrios as archbishop in 1999. The chapter investigates the religious dimension in several articulations of Greek American identity that was becoming more pronounced and outlines the patriarchate's involvement in Greek Orthodoxy's affairs in the US. It summarizes the Greek Orthodox Church's trajectory throughout the twentieth century and analyzes its ability to balance between adapting to the American social context and maintaining its ethnic roots, which enabled it to play a significant part in defining Greek American identity.

The Challenges for an American Greek Orthodoxy

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

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

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.