Becoming Eastern Orthodox in diaspora: materializingOrthodox RussiaandHoly Rus’

Orthodox Christianity in the United States: A challenge for the study of American religion

“…Within the 21st century, the geographical locus of inquiry has shifted, as contemporary scholars of Orthodoxy in the United States have become keenly aware of how the religion is transforming because of convert populations, and how Orthodox religiosity, politics, and practices are not unmoored from the global formations of the faith. While some work was done in the 1990s, it has largely been within the 21st century that scholars have begun to deeply interrogate American conversions to the immigrant, diasporic formations of Orthodoxy beyond Alaska (Herbel, 2014; Kravchenko, 2018; Riccardi‐Swartz, 2016, 2019, 2021, 2022; Slagle, 2011; Whitesides, 1997; Winchester, 2015).…”

“…Religious Studies scholar Elena Kravchenko has brought our attention to how religious art and racial reconciliation are key aspects of contemporary African American conversions to Orthodoxy (Kravchenko, 2020, 2021). Additionally, Kravchenko provides new ways to think about the construction of both diasporic and convert Orthodox identities through religious narratives, holy or sacred images, and spiritual geographies of belonging (Kravchenko, 2018) Also interested in materiality, Nicholas Denysenko's work on Church architecture in the United States offers insight into how Orthodoxy is built in community spaces (Denysenko, 2017).…”