850,000?!?!?

Check out this article on American converts to Orthodoxy.

This little bit is misleading, I think: "Orthodoxy represents an oasis of Christian tradition with its centuries-old style of worship and timeless celebration of the mysterious power of saints."

But what really threw me was this: "Since the mid-1990s, about 850,000 Americans have been drawn to more than a dozen different divisions of Orthodoxy that have congregations in the U.S."

850,000 cannot possibly be right, can it?????

Comments

Anonymous said…
That 850,000 should be more like 8,500.

And when you consider retention, it's probably neutral. Most statistics show that there are more parishes, and perhaps more active and dynamic parishes, but the parishes are much much smaller on average. I believe Fr. Thomas Hopko quipped in a recent letter that there are some dioceses that are smaller than their cathedrals alone were, say 40 years ago.

- Steve Knowlton
5:24 PM
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