Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese of North America

Heritage

Orthodox Christians from Syria and Lebanon began arriving in the 1880s, peddling dry goods along the East Coast and settling around Brooklyn; St. Raphael Hawaweeny, consecrated in 1904 as the first Orthodox bishop consecrated in North America, shepherded them until his death in 1915. After decades split between rival Antiochian jurisdictions, the archdiocese unified in 1975 under Metropolitan Philip Saliba. In 1987 it received some two thousand members of the Evangelical Orthodox Church — former Campus Crusade staff who had spent a decade reading their way toward the ancient church — a watershed for convert Orthodoxy in America. It remains an archdiocese of the Patriarchate of Antioch, whose patriarch sits in Damascus.

Theological family

Chalcedonian Eastern Orthodox, indistinguishable in doctrine from its sister jurisdictions; its patriarchate is Antioch, the city where the disciples were first called Christians (Acts 11:26) — a lineage the archdiocese cites with some relish.

Who decides what

A self-ruled archdiocese of the Patriarchate of Antioch: the Metropolitan of all North America governs with a local synod of bishops, archdiocesan conventions of clergy and laity, and elected parish councils. Self-rule, granted in 2003, leaves the metropolitan's final election with Antioch's holy synod.

What a first-time visitor would find

The Divine Liturgy in English nearly everywhere, with Arabic and some Greek retained in older parishes; Byzantine chant, icons, incense. The archdiocese is notably convert-friendly — inquirers' classes are routine — and coffee hour may set kibbeh next to donuts, which is the whole story in miniature.

What it has always cared about

Evangelism in the American idiom — its publishing arm grew into Ancient Faith Ministries, Orthodoxy's main English-language press and podcast platform; care for the Christians of Syria and Lebanon in war and diaspora; the conviction that Orthodoxy is not an ethnic inheritance but anyone's birthright.

Its gift to the wider church

It proved that American evangelicals could come home to the ancient church without ceasing to be evangelists — the 1987 reception seeded clergy, parishes, publishing and podcasting that now serve every Orthodox jurisdiction. RCMS 2020 counts 255 parishes.

Commonly confused with

With the Syriac Orthodox Church of Antioch — a different communion (Oriental Orthodox) claiming the same ancient see; with the Melkite Greek Catholic Church, Arab Christians in communion with Rome; and "Antiochian" is often misread as an American place rather than ancient Antioch.

Range of views inside it

Parishes range from century-old Arab-heritage communities to mission plants founded entirely by converts; the mix shapes music, food and idiom far more than doctrine. Views vary on how loudly to carry Middle Eastern grief and politics into parish life.

Where Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese of North America churches are on the map

29 Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese of North America congregations appear on The Church Map, across 14 states.

• Maryland — 6
• New Jersey — 3
• Virginia — 3
• West Virginia — 3
• California — 2
• North Carolina — 2
• Ohio — 2
• Pennsylvania — 2
• Delaware — 1
• Florida — 1

Moments this body was part of

• 1880–1924 — Orthodoxy crosses with the immigrants

  Greek, Russian, Antiochian, Serbian, Romanian and Carpatho-Rusyn immigrants planted Orthodox parishes across industrial America between 1880 and 1924, each community organizing under its mother church — which is why American Orthodoxy is arranged in overlapping ethnic jurisdictions to this day. The Greek Orthodox Archdiocese was chartered in 1921.