Does it ever bother you how few Orthodox Christians actually are in the world?

Discussion · 35

Opinions are anonymous retellings of real comments from the original discussion. The same colour marks the same participant.

Log in Log in or sign up to join the discussion.

• − opinion#1420 1 likes at the source

  What gets to me more is that there are far fewer actual Christians than people who just call themselves that. Take Serbia: churches sit nearly empty most of the time, yet on paper over 95% of Serbs are Orthodox. But honestly it doesn't worry me. The Bible already says it - many are called, but few are chosen.

  • − opinion#1440 1 likes at the source

    Churches in Serbia are empty???? :(((((( Come to Romania!!! Ours are packed. Tomorrow we're even celebrating Saint Parascheva from Iași - look it up on youtube, tens of thousands of people show up.

    • − opinion#1446 1 likes at the source

      Glad to hear yours are full. Ours only fill up somewhat at Easter and Christmas. Even at Slavas, which are a huge deal in Serbia, most people just show up so the priest can bless their Slava cake and koljivo and then head home, never staying for the Liturgy. It genuinely makes me sad. Meanwhile in Georgia people usually end up standing outside unless they arrive really early.

      • − opinion#1450 1 likes at the source

        In the US we call those people Chreasters
      • − opinion#1451 1 likes at the source

        With "slava", the priest does the ceremony ONLY AFTER the Holy Liturgy? What is this, why before?

        • − opinion#1452 1 likes at the source

          They do it both before and after in some churches. And in others (usually big-parish ones, like the only church in a town of 10000), they skip the Liturgy entirely and just have people queue up to get their stuff blessed. I've never seen a church where it works differently.

          • − opinion#1453 1 likes at the source

            That's really sad. :( but I guess it's a sign of the End of Times....

            • − opinion#1454 1 likes at the source

              The issue is too many people crowd some churches and not others, but only for their own Slavas - so when it's Saint Nicholas or Saint George (the two most popular), they just let everyone come before and after. Personally I think it should be before, because if you're at the Divine Liturgy you should be leaving your worries behind, so the ceremonies and candles should be finished before the chanting starts. And honestly, places that get that many people for Slavas need more churches. Still, it's a shame they have to manage like that.
    • − opinion#1447 1 likes at the source

      I've been to Iasi ~ there's a line stretching outside waiting to venerate St Paracheva *every single day*! A priest told me people come on their lunch break just to visit the saint. ❤️☦️
• − opinion#1421 1 likes at the source

  Honestly, no. Orthodoxy takes a lot of work and people are busy or lazy. At least in the states it's a culture of instant gratification. Then again, I also think most people just don't know about it and might find it weird.

  • − opinion#1441 1 likes at the source

    Yes. And the path is very narrow too.
  • − opinion#1442 1 likes at the source

    This. I became a "believer" about 10 years ago. Started thinking about what it actually meant and turned to Christianity. I quickly saw Protestantism wasn't quite right, so figured maybe Catholicism? But looking into Orthodoxy, I found it's harder than all the others and also more historically tied to the Apostles. It forces you to really examine yourself instead of just going through the motions. It's harder, and that's what made it seem right to me. Bad explanation I know, but hopefully it makes sense.
• − opinion#1422 1 likes at the source

  Protestants aren't one single group - there's as much variation among them as between some of them and us. So we're not the smallest branch. But to your point, what bothers me more is how few people who call themselves Orthodox actually take the faith seriously. It's not just our problem either (plenty of cultural Protestants and Catholics out there). I don't consider other Christians, or even non-Christians, automatically damned. They'll be judged by what they were given and how they lived.
• − opinion#1423 1 likes at the source

  Doesn't bother me at all. The whole East was under Islamic rule for centuries, only getting out 100-200 years ago (and much of it still hasn't). Russia and Eastern Europe lived under godless Communism for 80 years. It's a miracle the Church survived at all! And while the East suffered under the Ottoman boot, Roman Catholicism spread on the backs of marauding Conquistadores.
• − opinion#1424 1 likes at the source

  **13** "Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it.**14** But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it." Also like others said, Protestants aren't one group. EO is the second biggest group of Christians

  • − opinion#1443 1 likes at the source

    I know that passage but I'm scared to actually apply it here. I don't want to be... prideful, I guess? Assuming I know which is the narrow path and then presuming I'm on it myself. Treating orthodoxy being the minority as the narrow path and other denominations as the wide path feels a bit dangerous for our humility.

    • − opinion#1448 1 likes at the source

      I don't mean to be uncharitable at all, but that's literally what the Orthodox (and Catholics, to be fair) have taught historically. I'd even say they still teach it, just with a different tone. How is it prideful? That sounds like an atheist's argument: "how do you know your God is the real one? There are so many!"
• − opinion#1425 1 likes at the source

  We're the salt of the earth, not the steak of the earth. We're small, but we flavor everything. Salvation comes through the church, but we pray for the whole world. Any holiness the faithful gain spills out into all the world.
• − opinion#1426 1 likes at the source

  It bothers me more as someone born in the U.S. not having many Orthodox friends outside my family and church. But for my faith itself, it really doesn't. The east went through way more religious and secular persecution than most of the west ever did. So naturally there'd be fewer christians in places where being one was much harder for hundreds of years. Also, lumping all protestants into one group isn't fair. Many protestant denominations disagree on major issues, and a lot of people calling themselves "protestant" aren't really protestant at all, more like non-denominational.
• − opinion#1427 1 likes at the source

  Protestants don't lump themselves together like they all believe the same things. When I was Pentecostal, we even looked at other Pentecostal denominations with suspicion over this or that. And the Baptists or Nazarenes or Methodists? Pfft, we barely counted them as Christian. Catholics all share the same doctrine (generally); Orthodox all share the same beliefs; Protestants, the founding churches were literally killing each other in wars within a few years over doctrinal differences. Protestantism today is more of a thorny bush than a branch.
• − opinion#1428 1 likes at the source

  Numbers aren't everything. Being on a church's membership rolls doesn't mean you're really a member. And any study that treats Protestants as one group isn't being fully honest. Their theology is all over the map, and from one church to the next it can look like a completely different religion.
• − opinion#1429 1 likes at the source

  Yes, I've thought about this. One thing to keep in mind: the devil has hunted the Orthodox throughout history, yet Jesus said His Church would prevail. So the fact we're still here at all is miraculous. And since communism 100 years ago, many of our ancestors moved west, mine did. Now thanks to technology more people know about us, it's all over YouTube for example, a bigger presence every day. But yes, sometimes I think it's been 2000 years. Why hasn't the Church spread farther, been accepted in Africa and Asia? It is slowly happening now though. The Lord works in mysterious ways, we all know.
• − opinion#1430 1 likes at the source

  Are you aware of the persecutions of the Eastern Church under the Ottoman Empire and in Russia? We didn't get to ride European colonialism around the world, we were fighting for survival while Roman Catholicism spread unchecked. Muslims have over 2 billion, does that make them the true Church?
• − opinion#1431 1 likes at the source

  I'm praying with David Bentley Hart. He said on Rainn Wilson's podcast that he's praying that in his lifetime Orthodoxy and Christianity in society shrink to the place where hungry people know they can find food, and then we'll truly be preaching the Gospel Jesus preached.

  • − opinion#1444 1 likes at the source

    I had no idea Rainn Wilson had a podcast. The things you learn here.
• − opinion#1432 1 likes at the source

  Catholicism and Protestantism are as widespread as they are because empires of Catholic- and Protestant-majority countries carried it with them. That's basically the only reason. Most of the Orthodox world was under the Ottoman yoke during the age of empire, while Russia, the only free Orthodox power, expanded into Siberia, plus Finland and Alaska, where there's still an Orthodox presence today. The age of migration is now bringing Orthodoxy to new lands, including mainland America, where as you probably know many parishes are bursting at the seams.
• − opinion#1433 1 likes at the source

  Ok, but with Protestants you could be talking 1,000 or more different denominations. That's not impressive either. So Catholics have the most, Orthodox next by your statistic. Nothing else really comes close. And Jesus had a dozen men following him consistently. The big crowds were hit and miss. So do the numbers really matter? You could have a billion people, does it matter if they don't live the faith?
• − opinion#1434 1 likes at the source

  I wouldn't worry at all. Christ never promised His Church would be the biggest, most popular, or most powerful institution on earth. In fact He taught the opposite: in Matthew 5:13-16 He tells His disciples "You are the salt of the earth," and "You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden." Think about it. Salt doesn't need to be the biggest ingredient to transform a whole meal, and one light can fill a dark room. Christ was talking about faithfulness, not "market share." The Orthodox Church has survived nearly 2,000 years of persecution, invasions, falling empires, centuries of oppressive Islamic rule, Communist repression, and endless attempts to crush it. Empires rise and fall, yet the Divine Liturgy continues, the sacraments endure, and the apostolic faith is still handed down generation to generation. And remember, the original Church started with twelve Apostles, not 300 million believers. If numbers measured truth, Christianity would never have survived its first few centuries. Our claim to be the apostolic Church rests on continuity of faith, worship, sacraments, and apostolic succession, not headcount. The question isn't whether we're numerous enough but whether we're faithful enough to stay the salt of the earth and the light of the world. That's what should concern us as Orthodox Christians. Not how many we are, but whether we're living the…
• − opinion#1435 1 likes at the source

  The countries where the Orthodox Church has been dominant have faced far heavier persecution than Western Europe. Millions were killed or silenced under Stalin and communist rule in Russia. The Middle Eastern and North African Orthodox churches have been nearly wiped out. Western Christianity has escaped that level of persecution. So far.
• − opinion#1436 1 likes at the source

  This is a hard one for me as I discern between Catholicism and Orthodoxy. On one hand, it makes sense that the king of the universe would rule the world from the seat of the empire that killed him, and that his church would be the largest religion in the world. On the other, I believe He is a humble king whose heart is gentle and lowly, and that God often has a heart for the small, the weak, the overlooked.

  • − opinion#1445 1 likes at the source

    one example I give people when this comes up is the Arian crisis, where the majority of the church fell into that error. A majority doesn't prove validity. And how many of those millions just call themselves Christian without actually living it? (obviously that applies to every group)

    • − opinion#1449 1 likes at the source

      That's a fair point. Appeal to the masses is a logical fallacy after all. I just find it hard to shake the feeling that God kind of seems like a "loser" (for lack of a better word) to me if every stream of Christendom went astray and the only true branch of Christianity is this small group most people have never heard of. Maybe my real problem is with Orthodoxy's exclusivity claim, but yeah, I don't really know what to make of it.
• − opinion#1437 1 likes at the source

  Everyone was Orthodox in the first millennium, so there's no appeal to the masses fallacy to worry about. It shouldn't surprise anyone that the "easy fun coffee bar churches" are the fullest. Most mainline protestant churches near me are pro skittles. Pentecostalism is the biggest prot denomination (lol) and anyone can become a catholic these days without even giving up their literal Amazonian idols or their charismaticism, so I'm sure that inflates their numbers.
• − opinion#1438 1 likes at the source

  A little, sure, it would be nice if we were bigger. But the numbers situation is really a modern thing caused by historical circumstances. It's not much of an issue, and it only really became one around 1900 or so, after which Africa and South America exploded in population. For example, at the peak of the Reformation Orthodoxy was probably the most numerous Christian group in the 16th century. Honestly this is mostly a colonization issue, since no Orthodox country colonized another one, while Protestants and Catholics lost nearly everything they had in Europe, and we've had a revival. Now we're spreading internationally, people interested in theology are finding us and joining, and we have to keep carrying out the Great Commission. The numbers aren't great right now but we'll change them, as has happened all through history.
• − opinion#1439 1 likes at the source

  It doesn't surprise me, because the story in Scripture was always that the normal thing is for only a small remnant to remain. In that sense, being a large majority of anything is more the abnormality than the norm. That doesn't mean smallness automatically signals correctness, no. But it doesn't make numbers meaningless either. It's just incredibly normal for something to only ever be a tiny fraction of the whole. Like how only a small minority of any religion, sect or creed are regular churchgoers. Or how only a small minority of any community does most of the everyday work holding it together. It's a fact of life meant to humble us, because no matter how much I might ever be or do, it will always be very little compared to someone somewhere else.