Fascinating discussion, thanks for posting the summary as well as your excellent question. One thing, in your info graphic you mention the relative size of jurisdictions, which I think you got from the census/wikipedia? I believe that the census question is a little misleading, particularly as most OCA/Antiochians would mark themselves as 50% that identified themselves purely as "Christian - Orthodox" etc... . By a combination of church count/active membership I believe the order is Greek(80), Ukrainian(200), OCA(110), Antiochian(30), Russian(25), Romanian(25), Serbian(18), Bulgarian(8), Macedonian(6), ACROD(5) etc... Albanians mentioned have zero active parishes in Canada, even the OCA Albanians...
Thanks! In the 2021 Census, there is a footnote that says OCA was counted in the Orthodox Not Otherwise Identified/Specified category--thats the number I was using. The number was less than 900 individuals. That seemed small to me, and I tried looking for current church count numbers like the one you mentioned. Do you have any sources for that info?
There's no way that the OCA in Canada is just 900 people. My guess is a lot of people in the OCA may have identified an ethnic type anyway. For instance many OCA parishes in Canada are very ethically Russian or Romanian and many people at English parishes might have an ethnic background that they indicated (eg a Greek who goes to an OCA parish). I've also met many non Greeks in Canada who tell people their religion is "Greek Orthodox" even though they are in another jurisdiction, so that could also be part of it and might also inflate the Greek numbers a bit (though I don't doubt that they are still the biggest).
What a great article, Nicole. Thanks for sharing it. I’d love to have something like this in the US.
The bishop’s question to the parish hit me hard. A question worth pondering.
Fr. B
Fascinating discussion, thanks for posting the summary as well as your excellent question. One thing, in your info graphic you mention the relative size of jurisdictions, which I think you got from the census/wikipedia? I believe that the census question is a little misleading, particularly as most OCA/Antiochians would mark themselves as 50% that identified themselves purely as "Christian - Orthodox" etc... . By a combination of church count/active membership I believe the order is Greek(80), Ukrainian(200), OCA(110), Antiochian(30), Russian(25), Romanian(25), Serbian(18), Bulgarian(8), Macedonian(6), ACROD(5) etc... Albanians mentioned have zero active parishes in Canada, even the OCA Albanians...
Thanks! In the 2021 Census, there is a footnote that says OCA was counted in the Orthodox Not Otherwise Identified/Specified category--thats the number I was using. The number was less than 900 individuals. That seemed small to me, and I tried looking for current church count numbers like the one you mentioned. Do you have any sources for that info?
There's no way that the OCA in Canada is just 900 people. My guess is a lot of people in the OCA may have identified an ethnic type anyway. For instance many OCA parishes in Canada are very ethically Russian or Romanian and many people at English parishes might have an ethnic background that they indicated (eg a Greek who goes to an OCA parish). I've also met many non Greeks in Canada who tell people their religion is "Greek Orthodox" even though they are in another jurisdiction, so that could also be part of it and might also inflate the Greek numbers a bit (though I don't doubt that they are still the biggest).
Getting clear data is hard!
Indeed. In any case, I've posted an addendum in the caption under that infographic taking your and @Mike I's points into account.
thank you for this recap! I love reading about big-picture/trend stuff within Orthodoxy like this.
Thank you! Fascinating summary and important questions