The Greek Orthodox Church in America: A Modern History

by Alexander Kitroeff

Overview

In this sweeping history, Alexander Kitroeff shows how the Greek Orthodox Church in America has functioned as much more than a religious institution, becoming the focal point in the lives of the country's million-plus Greek immigrants and their descendants.

Assuming the responsibility of running Greek-language schools and encouraging local parishes to engage in cultural and social activities, the church became the most important Greek American institution and shaped the identity of Greeks in the United States. Kitroeff digs into these traditional activities, highlighting the American church's dependency on the "mother church," the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Constantinople, and the use of Greek language in the Sunday liturgy. Today, as this rich biography of the church shows us, Greek Orthodoxy remains in between the Old World and the New, both Greek and American.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781501749445
Publisher:	Northern Illinois University Press
Publication date:	06/15/2020
Series:	NIU Series in Orthodox Christian Studies
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	330
File size:	1 MB
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Alexander Kitroeff is Professor of History at Haverford College. He is author of numerous books, including, most recently, The Greeks and the Making of Modern Egypt. Follow him on X @Kitro1908.

Table of Contents

Introduction
1. Greek Orthodoxy Arrives in America
2. Americanization and the Immigrant Church in the 1920s
3. Greek Orthodoxy versus Protestant Congregationalism
4. The Greek Orthodox Church in between Greece and America
5. Assimilation and Respectability in the 1950s
6. The Challenges of the 1960s
7. Greek Orthodoxy and the Ethnic Revival
8. Church and Homeland
9. Toward an American Greek Orthodoxy
10. The Challenges for an American Greek Orthodoxy
11. Church and Patriarchate and the Limits of Americanization
12. Greek Orthodoxy in America Enters the Twenty-First Century

What People are Saying About This

Yiorgos Anagnostou

Kitroeff relies on ethnohistoric particulars to skillfully interweave them with wider contexts and craft a larger story of national and international significance. Although the focus is on a particular ethnoreligious group, the net is cast wide to connect this group with American politics, intra-religious developments (Eastern Orthodoxy, the World Council of Churches), and transnational institutions.

Theofanis G. Stavrou

Kitroeff has provided the best outline of the entire history of the Greek Orthodox Church in the United States.

Rev. Dr. Robert Stephanopoulos

The many institutions, churches, and ethnic associations detailed in this exhaustive review by the eminent historian Alexander Kitroeff is supported by a complete bibliography of archival documents, publications, and interviews. This book is an indispensable contribution to the interrelationship between Greek ethnoreligious identity and immigration.