Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America

Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America belongs to the Eastern Orthodox family of churches.

Governance: hierarchical.

Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America reports 533 congregations in the United States (RCMS 2020 (ARDA national table), 2020).

The largest Orthodox jurisdiction in America, planted by Greek immigrants between the 1890s and 1924 — the church whose festivals have introduced more Americans to Orthodoxy than any book, and whose archbishop marched beside Dr. King at Selma.

Heritage

Greek immigrants arriving between the 1890s and the 1924 quota laws built parishes wherever they settled, and the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople chartered the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese in 1921–22 to gather them. Archbishop Athenagoras (1931–1948) unified parishes that Greek royalist-republican politics had split, then left New York to become Ecumenical Patriarch himself. Archbishop Iakovos led the Archdiocese for thirty-seven years and stood with Martin Luther King Jr. at Selma in 1965. The Archdiocese remains an eparchy of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, headquartered in New York, with Holy Cross seminary in Brookline, Massachusetts.

Theological family

Fully Chalcedonian Eastern Orthodox — the faith of the seven councils as the whole communion holds it; nothing doctrinal distinguishes the Greek Archdiocese from its sister jurisdictions. What distinguishes it is inheritance: the Greek of the New Testament and the Byzantine tradition at first hand.

Who decides what

An eparchy of the Ecumenical Patriarchate: the Archbishop of America presides, with metropolitans over its metropolises; a biennial Clergy-Laity Congress and archdiocesan council handle administration, and elected parish councils manage each parish's temporal affairs. Constantinople consecrates the bishops — a live transatlantic bond, not a formality.

What a first-time visitor would find

The Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom sung in Byzantine chant, in Greek and English in proportions that vary parish to parish; icons, incense, and blessed bread offered to all at the end. Holy Week and Pascha are the crown of the year, and the parish festival — souvlaki, dancing, church tours — is many neighbors' first step inside an Orthodox church.

What it has always cared about

Hellenism and Orthodoxy held together — Greek school, Greek dance, the language of the Gospels; organized philanthropy through Philoptochos, the women's society; and a public-square presence unusual among Orthodox jurisdictions, from Selma to the rebuilt St. Nicholas shrine at Ground Zero.

Its gift to the wider church

Iakovos beside Dr. King on the cover of Life magazine gave American Christianity one of its great images of costly solidarity, and the parish festival — easy to tease — has been American Orthodoxy's most effective open door. RCMS 2020 counts 533 parishes, most of them hosting one.

Commonly confused with

With "Greek Orthodox" used loosely for all Eastern Orthodoxy — Antiochian, Serbian and OCA parishes are constantly filed under it; and with Greek Catholic churches, Byzantine in worship but in communion with Rome.

Range of views inside it

Parishes range from immigrant-dense communities worshiping mostly in Greek to convert-welcoming parishes worshiping mostly in English; how tightly Hellenic identity and Orthodox mission should be tied together is the Archdiocese's oldest running argument.

A note from the mapmakers: Nothing here may be asserted of a specific parish — least of all its language balance or festival calendar. Our data cannot say which "Greek Orthodox"-consonant churches belong to this Archdiocese rather than another jurisdiction. Sentences drawn from this record hedge as "Greek Orthodox parishes typically…" and yield to the parish's own materials.

Sources: Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America — History (Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America) · Orthodox Christians in America (John H. Erickson, Oxford University Press) · Handbook of Denominations in the United States (Abingdon Press)

Where Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America churches are on the map

506 Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America congregations appear on The Church Map, across 49 states.

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.

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