When Peter Maris\u2019 father arrived from Greece the U.S. immigration officer couldn\u2019t understand his last name and \u201cMargaris\u201d became \u201cMaris.\u201d<\/p>\n\n
When his mother\u2019s Jewish parents arrived from Poland they added \u201cski\u201d to their name because they thought \u201cRafalski\u201d sounded Catholic and, thus, would be safer.<\/p>\n\n
And when Kathleen Rafalski married Dennis Maris, she immediately joined the St. Demetrios Orthodox Church in Hammond, Ind.<\/p>\n\n
\u201cThey were married in the Greek church,\u201d said Peter Maris, 42. \u201cShe learned to speak Greek. She learned to cook Greek. She did everything she could to show her commitment to the faith.\u201d<\/p>\n\n
Then came the parish Christmas party when his mother brought a plate of Polish cookies. His father didn\u2019t tell this story often, because it was too painful.<\/p>\n\n
\u201cSome of the women got upset,\u201d said Peter Maris. \u201cThey told my mother, \u2018What are you doing, bringing those in here? We don\u2019t need you and we don\u2019t need your Polish cookies. We are Greek.\u2019 \u201c<\/p>\n\n
The family walked out and never returned. <\/p>\n\n
Now, nearly four decades later, Maris has come home to Eastern Orthodoxy \u2014 just in time for \u201cPascha\u201d (Easter in the West).<\/p>\n\n
This is one man\u2019s story, but it contains elements of stories told by thousands of converts in an era when this old-world faith is growing in a land already packed with Protestant and Catholic churches. In most communities, Orthodox parishes are known as the \u201cGreek church\u201d or the \u201cRussian church\u201d or carry some other ethnic label.<\/p>\n\n
This is one man\u2019s story and it happens to be a story that I first overheard in the fellowship hall of my own Orthodox parish. What is different about this minister named Maris is that his story combines both the joy and pain experienced by \u201cconverts\u201d and \u201ccradles\u201d \u2014 those born into Orthodoxy \u2014 who are learning to live and worship together in an ancient church that is quietly sinking its roots into modern America.<\/p>\n\n
Maris has tasted the bitter and the sweet.<\/p>\n\n
There are an estimated 250 million Orthodox believers worldwide \u2014 the second largest Christian flock \u2014 but only 1.2 million in the 22 ethnic jurisdictions in North America. While a few leaders have raised eyebrows by claiming a 6 percent annual growth rate, an accurate count would have to account for ethnic members who are drifting out of Orthodoxy as well as converts who are joining. <\/p>\n\n
It\u2019s safer to count U.S. parishes and watch clergy trends. The convert-friendly Antiochian Orthodox Archdiocese has, for example, grown from 66 parishes to 250 parishes and missions in four decades. Also, a recent survey found that 43 percent of today\u2019s seminarians are converts, a percentage that must be higher among the Antiochians and in the Orthodox Church in America, which sprang from Russian roots.<\/p>\n\n
Maris is unusual, since he was baptized Orthodox before finding his way into evangelicalism. He met his Baptist wife at Chicago\u2019s Moody Bible Institute, did graduate degrees at Regent College in Vancouver, British Columbia, and worked in Korean Presbyterian and Chinese Christian churches before being ordained as a priest in the Charismatic Episcopal Church.<\/p>\n\n
\u201cFor the longest time, I could only see Orthodoxy through the eyes of my childhood,\u201d he said. \u201cFor me, Orthodoxy was an ethnic ghetto. \u2026 In many ways, I came back to the church kicking and screaming. But in the end I knew this was where I was supposed to be. There was no place else I could go.\u201d<\/p>\n\n
Maris can still speak some Greek and he has been experiencing flashbacks to early memories of the taste of Communion wine, the smell of incense, echoes of Byzantine hymns and glimpses of an icon of Jesus, high in a sanctuary dome. <\/p>\n\n
However, he also remembers his parents\u2019 conflicting emotions as their new American dreams clashed with old ethnic traditions. He witnessed similar dramas in Korean and Chinese churches.<\/p>\n\n
\u201cYou want to keep the language and you want to keep the food and all of that, somehow, gets mixed in with the traditions of the church,\u201d he said. \u201cThen the parents discover that they just can\u2019t communicate with their kids and the kids just can\u2019t appreciate what is happening in church because that\u2019s all wound up with the ethnicity thing. \u2026<\/p>\n\n
\u201cAt some point you have to claim the faith as your own \u2014 you can\u2019t inherit it. In the end, you have to believe.\u201d <\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
When Peter Maris\u2019 father arrived from Greece the U.S. immigration officer couldn\u2019t understand his last name and \u201cMargaris\u201d became \u201cMaris.\u201d When his mother\u2019s Jewish parents arrived from Poland they added \u201cski\u201d to their name because they thought \u201cRafalski\u201d sounded Catholic and, thus, would be safer. And when Kathleen Rafalski married Dennis Maris, she immediately joined […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":610,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[310,336,514,1550],"class_list":["post-1432","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-eastern-orthodoxy","tag-ethnic-churches","tag-liturgy","tag-worship"],"yoast_head":"\n