(RNS) — Most American churches navigated the patchwork of COVID-19 restrictions on public gatherings by periodically closing their doors and broadcasting services online instead.
But for almost half of U.S. Orthodox Christians, whose liturgy involves processions, incense, kissing icons and crosses and receiving Communion from a shared spoon and chalice, liturgical services continued for anyone wanting to attend in person, according to a new study of how the denomination weathered the pandemic.
The new study finds that Orthodox churches overall were reluctant to embrace virtual worship compared to all religious congregations. By spring 2023, 75% of all U.S. congregations provided remote options compared to only 53% of Orthodox churches.
Fewer online options likely contributed to the significant drop in Orthodox church participation in the middle of the pandemic in 2021, but compared to other U.S. congregations that are on average 8% below pre-COVID-19 attendance, Orthodox churches had recovered in-person attendance on average by spring 2023.
At the same time, Orthodox churches overall have seen a drop in volunteer participation, from 40% in 2020 to 25% in 2023, compared to 40% and 35% in all U.S. congregations.
The Orthodox tendency to “ignore” the pandemic has produced a “mixed bag,” said research released Thursday (Aug. 22) by the Hartford Institute for Religion Research and Alexei Krindatch, national coordinator of the U.S. Census of Orthodox Christian Churches. Orthodox churches in the U.S. are more likely than other religious congregations to have gained members during the COVID-19 pandemic, even while struggling with declines in participation and volunteering.
Using survey data from 2020 through 2023, the study found 44% of Orthodox churches remained open during the pandemic, compared to just 12% of all U.S. congregations. Only 31% of Orthodox priests publicly encouraged parishioners to get vaccinated compared to 62% of all clergy.
“They were trying to avoid conflicts,” said Krindatch, the study’s lead researcher, who has published earlier reports on how the pandemic impacted Orthodox Christians.
There is no single Orthodox Church in the U.S. Instead, several jurisdictions — the largest are the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese, the Orthodox Church in America and the Antiochian Orthodox Archdiocese — are administered independently of one another and exist side by side, sharing the same teachings and in full communion with one another. Many Orthodox parishes combine several immigrant groups and their descendants, from Russians and Ukrainians to Arabs and Greeks, as well as converts from other faiths and denominations.
Bishops provided pandemic guidance to the priests serving them, such as whether to require masking or not, often across a swath of states that clashed on masking and lockdown mandates. Priests then chose whether and how to follow or adapt that guidance to their specific circumstances, sometimes casting doubt on the bishop’s authority.
“I figured people are going to make their own medical decisions (about the vaccine),” said one Orthodox priest who participated in the survey, the Rev. Lawrence Margitich of St. Seraphim of Sarov Cathedral in Santa Rosa, California, a parish of the Orthodox Church of America. “I’m the priest. What do I know about that stuff?”
Margitich said his church has grown from about 80 people on a Sunday morning in the pre-pandemic months of 2020 to about 180 people today. To reduce the spread of the coronavirus, in 2020, the church moved services to its outdoor courtyard with an amplified sound system. Then in August 2020, smoke from a major wildfire pushed them back inside.
