Huge numbers of men becoming Orthodox in reaction to 'feminization' of religion: report

Politics in the United States has seen a growing gender divide, with men growing more Republican and women growing more Democratic. Now, Christianity could be seeing something similar, reported the New York Post, as young men gravitate toward Orthodox churches and leave women increasingly in the majority congregation of many Protestant denominations.

According to the report, "a survey of Orthodox churches around the country found that parishes saw a 78% increase in converts in 2022, compared with pre-pandemic levels in 2019. And, while historically men and women converted in equal numbers, vastly more men have joined the church since 2020."

One example is Saint Andrew’s Orthodox Church in Riverside, California, where Father Josiah Trenham reports 1,000 active participants and an increasingly male skew of converts.

“The feminization of non-Orthodox forms of Christianity in America has been in high gear for decades,” he said.

“Men are much less comfortable [in those settings], and they have voted with their feet, which is why they’re minorities in these forms of worship. Our worship forms are very traditional and very masculine.”

The article profiled Ben Christiansen, a 25-year-old Virginia man who converted to Orthodox in college because he wanted something more traditional: "Conversion means that he now must frequently attend confession, recite prescribed prayers, and endure extreme fasting, sometimes over 40-day stretches. Weekly services are also highly ritualized and regimented, and can last up to two hours."

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He says what draws him to the faith is, “There is a sense of structure, of continuity … It’s the exact same. It hasn’t changed. It’s not going to change.”

While many Protestant denominations remain highly conservative, some others have embraced LGBTQ rights and movements like Black Lives Matter, which the report suggests could be reflective of the trends.

The Orthodox faith has seen some of its own controversies in recent years, in particular the majority of the faith's leaders turning on the Russian patriarch for acting as a propagandist for Vladimir Putin's war in Ukraine.