This article was originally posted on The New York Times by Ruth Graham.
Something is changing in an otherwise quiet corner of Christianity in the United States, one that prides itself on how little it has changed over time. Priests are swapping stories about record attendance numbers. Older members are adjusting — or not — to the influx of new attendees. Parishes are strategizing about how to accommodate more prospective converts than existing clergy can reasonably handle on their own.
Across the country, the ancient tradition of Orthodox Christianity is attracting energetic new adherents, especially among conservative young men. They are drawn to what they describe as a more demanding, even difficult, practice of Christianity. Echoing some of the rhetoric of the so-called manosphere, new waves of young converts say Orthodoxy offers them hard truths and affirms their masculinity.
“In the whole history of the Orthodox Church in America, this has never been seen,” the Very Rev. Andrew Damick, an Antiochian Orthodox priest and author in Eastern Pennsylvania, said of the large groups of young people showing up at many parishes. “This is new ground for everyone.”
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