Orthodox Church in America - Membership

Membership

The exact number of OCA parishioners is debated. The 2006 edition of the Yearbook of American and Canadian Churches, the OCA has 1,064,000 members, an increase of 6.4 percent from 2005. This figure places the OCA as the 24th largest Christian denomination in the United States, and second to the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America.

In 2000, a study by Alexei D. Krindatch of the Patriarch Athenagoras Orthodox Institute, presented a substantially lower figure—115,100 adherents (baptized Orthodox who attend services on at least an occasional basis and their children) and 39,400 full members (persons older than 18, paying annual Church membership fees). The Greek Orthodox Archdiocese, by comparison, was listed as having 440,000 adherents. In response to the study, an OCA representative stated the Church had "around 750,000 adults and children."

In 2004, a Fr. Jonathan Ivanoff stated in a presentation at the OCA's Evangelization Conference that the Church's census population in 2004 was 27,169, and that membership from 1990–2000 declined 13 percent. It further stated that the OCA population in the continental United States declined between six and nine percent per year.

In 2011, The Atlas of American Orthodox Christian Churches, published by Holy Cross Orthodox Press and based on research by Alexei Krindatch was released. It has extensive data on various Orthodox Churches in the United States, including both Eastern Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox groups (as well as groups considered uncanonical by those two groups). The publication is endorsed by the Assembly of Canonical Orthodox Bishops and is being used by various Assembly committees as part of their research and planning. The Atlas lists the United States membership of the OCA as 84,900; 33,800 of which it says are regular church attendees. It lists the OCA as having 551 parishes and 19 monasteries in the United States. It also indicates the states with the heaviest concentration of OCA parishes are, in order: Alaska (with 86), Pennsylvania (with 83), California (with 43) and New York (with 41).