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I don't know what the inflated numbers are about but I really don't think it was about getting more eparchies or bishops. It isn't born out by the reality of what happens. The Holy See has been more than willing to erect exarchies and eparchies for the Eastern Churches even when the numbers of faithful/parishes are miniscule. Witness the Romanian and Slovak Eparchies in America and Canada respectively or any of the Eastern Eparchies in South America. Some consist of a single parish. Or, to compare to the Latin Church, Alaska has about 55,000 Latin Catholics. There are three diocese. The smallest is Juneau with 6000, which is also the smallest Latin diocese in the US. Or, looking at it overall, of the 15 smallest dioceses/eparchies in the US 11 are Eastern Catholic Eparchies.

djs (whoever �djs� is since honesty doesn't seem to include one's identity),

You wrote:
�Well I suppose that it's always possible to assert dishonesty, if that's your mentality.�

What does this have to do with my �mentality?� I believe that Anastasios was the one who stated that the numbers were initially inflated until the late Metropolitan Judson stipulated that realistic numbers be tallied. If this is the case, then wouldn�t inflated numbers be dishonest? Or is that only so if you have investments in equity?

You continued:
�But then please tell me how to count.�

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, �

Is this something new?

Are we to assume that the eparchies changed their criteria every year from 1990 to 2003? (i.e., Men over six foot will be tallied as two people for THIS year). Doesn�t consistency mean anything to you, man?

You concluded:
�Without that prescription you're just blowing smoke.�

I only know a few people who include the phrase �blowing smoke.� I don�t think I was the one blowing smoke, my friend. I naturally assume that the numbers were honest since they were being submitted to the Catholic Directory and Rome. If the numbers are real, then �

*Ruthenian Byzantines (USA): 1990 - 2003
USA jurisdictions..........1990........2003...%+/-
Pittsburgh..............143,784......60,686...-58%
Passaic..................85,050......24,504...-71%
Parma....................22,202......12,482...-44%
Van Nuys.................17,125.......3,016...-82%

� looks pretty bad.

What do you think of Anastasios� thesis?

Joe Thur

There�s no �Byzantine intrigue� or vast right wing conspiracy when it comes to the census. It is taken every year and published in the Catholic Directory. Kind of like a Catholic Yellow Pages which comes out every year. We receive the form in the mail, which asks us questions like: How many people (souls, individuals) in your parish? How many deaths, marriages, baptisms, converts, adult baptisms, children in CCD/ECF, if we have a school, staff, etc.
While I�m always �tempted� to perhaps still count one or two parishioners who have died just before I get the census form, I don�t. I just count how many �registered� alive members I have, along with all of the other categories and fill out the form.
To my knowledge, the bishop has never suggested directly or indirectly that we fudge any numbers. Each priest is on his own in that area. It is pretty straight forward. And if we haven�t sent in the form,lest our numbers are not counted, we do get a call from the Chancery reminding us of our obligation to fill the thing out. I�ve gotten a few of those!

First, this is good that the numbers aren't fudged. Anastasios might have been thinking of some other church.

Second, this is bad that the numbers aren't fudged since they reflect a serious decline in membership.

Third, why are conspiracy theories right wing?

The inconsistent numbers are in part due to different priests using different criteria for membership. Who counts? Those who show up everyweek? Or only those who are canonically Byzantine? Those who use envelopes? Those who show up only on Christmas and Pascha? This was/is a large part of the problem. I don't know if Metropolitan Judson required a uniform criteria or not.

In Christ,
Subdeacon Lance

Dear Friends,

I think we need to step back and take a look at the "objective" nature of statistics and counting.

The point raised earlier about how statistics are garnered in response to the subjective paradigms of the inquirers is really dead on.

I've worked in research houses and for school boards where I was asked to tally numbers in order to make what amounts to a "political" statement.

For example, certain departments within the Catholic board I worked for wanted greater resources. So they constructed a research project for me that both they and I knew would result in findings that would send a loud message to the central HQ that they in fact need more resources.

In fact, they and others I did projects for already KNEW the numbers and what the reports and numbers would say.

In some countries, Churches count their strength by the number of parishes they have. It matters not if the parishes have a lot of people in them, or what not. Parishes = strength.

When Churches count their numbers on the basis of baptismal roles - is that a good indication?

What if those baptised are today in other Churches or are even Marxist revolutionaries etc.?

In addition, even if one counts on the basis of numbers - plain and simple - so what?

One is still left with the need to interpret them - and interpretations are always subjective.

The idea that numbers come replete with their own objective interpretation - that is so obsolete so as not to deserve comment.

It is not about "lying" or "fudging." That's what we do with statistics all the time.

Politicians do it too and I've just come out of an election campaign where polls, as interpreted by the press etc., decide democratic outcomes.

In any event, there you have it.

Alex

I'm assuming that the numbers are as honest as possible. I have no reason not to. I'm also assuming that it is impossible to get an exact count no matter what criterion one sets.

What the numbers do tell us is that we have a terrible problem. We used to say in Methodism about their decline in members "If bishops were CEO's of GM they'd all be fired." I'm not sure I'd go that far but we do need bishops that will think strategically and not simply ignore this situation. There are some signs that this may be happening. (I'll leave those conclusions to others who are in a better position to know.)

1. Could the bishops encourage several of our smaller churches to unite? Three make better matches than two. Besides, three is good Byzantine theology.

2. Will our bishops ordain married men?

3. Will our bishops insist that each parish have a sound stewardship program?

4. Will we ask our deacons to develop evangelism programs in each parish?

5. It seems possible to me to find out more information than is apparently available now about why people left in such large numbers. Some suggestions have already been made but do we know? Can we ask those who left why they left? I don't see why not but their may be some reason. Once we find out why they left we can address those problems.

6. Our bishops seem to be giving all of us good examples of holy living. That is obviously a plus. We can all build on that.

7. Perhaps the most important strategic thing our bishops can do is to ask every church to find out from it's newest members why they came. It is always good to emphasise our positives and to try to strenghten our weaknesses. If a parish has no new members in a year perhaps that parish should be united with two that have.

Father Michael, see what you've started? It's a good thing. Now, about your beard.

Dan Lauffer

If I may, I just want to give a pastor's perspective on "counting" parishioners. It's not as easy as it may seem, for several reasons: First, at least in the OCA, the statistical number that is reported is considered a membership number for purposes of assessment. Given OCA and diocesan assessments, the parish pays around $120 per adult per year (children are not included in reported numbers, something which does not square with our theology, but financially, you don't pay for them because they don't financially participate in a parish). For a parish of 200 adults, that's $24,000 per year, and that's a big chunk of change for cash-strapped churches.

Now, yes, there is criteria, but it is vague. Every baptized member must be included. But try to understand this from simply a pastoral perspective, but also a financial perspective. Every baptized person (adult)? Do you include people who never come to church? Seldom come to church? Do you include, as in my case, Russians who have lived in the area for five years, come to church once, and you never see them again? What about the couple who came to have their baby baptized? Or the couple to came to get married, and they've not been back? Or what about a family who has means, but never gives because, I don't know what, someone said something rude to them 20 years ago? What about those who are baptized, but have joined another religion, and you don't know about it until after the fact? How about shut-ins who can't come to church because they're sick, can't financially contribute because they're on Social Security, but they were good life-long members and you go three or four times a year to visit them and give them communion?

Then there's the whole problem of who you actually minister to, but are not really members, or may not even be Orthodox! For instance, sometimes, in a family, let's say only the wife is Orthodox, and one of the three kids comes to Sunday School. But then, the husband dies and you bury him (from the funeral home)? What about the high school student that never comes, but you minister to them anyway because she just got pregant? Or the father of a convert who is dying and she asked you to visit him?

So the numbers game can be very confusing, and actually very costly to a parish, when it comes to "reporting" numbers and paying assessments. Although my parish has offically about 150 adults, I can easily justify that I minster to well over 250, even 300 adults, not counting children, given the various reasons above. Of those 300 not all come, not all pariticipate, and not all are Orthodox, but somehow in someway the church touches them and ministers to them.

All of these factors make the statistics very difficult to calculate.

Just one other point about stats from the 40s and 50s to today. There is no doubt that the numbers are much lower. (For instance, the OCA was in a statistical decline, but we know for a fact that the trend has been reversed.) One thing that always bugged me about the numbers from the WWII era. In almost every church that I am familiar with, I've heard about how there were hundreds and even thousands more people. Although I don't have initial reason to doubt it, in the case of the Orthodox, one thing never added up. All of the church buildings (in the Pittsburgh area) hold about 150-200 people. Some less, some more. Since there was only one priest, you could only have one liturgy. Granted, some did have an "obednitsa" before or after the Divine Liturgy, but the numbers still never added up. For instance, I was told that the Ukranian Church down the street from us had, in the 50s, 3,000 "members". The church holds maybe 250. Were those people really members? Did they ever go to church? Most likely not. But because there was no "assessment" until about 1960, the numbers were very high. Also, the pictures of parishioners standing out in front of their churches from that era never show anywhere close to those numbers. Not even approaching a quarter of those numbers. Almost every Orthodox Church in the area could claim the same thing.

So there are all kinds of factors that make me doubt the numbers from the past, in regards to Orthodoxy. That is not to say that we have not lost members. We have. The greatest factor of our losing members, bar none, was when an Orthodox married a Roman Catholic, and had to sign an agreement to raise the children Catholic. That virtually killed us, and we lost that entire family forever. Very few families took on the burden of having a "two religion" household. The lure of being more "American" by joining a Protestant Church was another factor, as well as using languages that the children did not understand. Also, today people are having fewer children.

I've seen the effect of the "law of multiples" at funerals again and again in the past few years. An older family member dies, and they were a nominal Orthodox Christian, and hence, their family went here and there, either no church, or another church. At the funeral, you have a church full of people, all who should be Orthodox, but aren't because of one single person's nominalism.

St. Seraphim of Sarov said "save yourself and you will save thousands around you," but unfortunately, the oppposite is true too. Someone's decision to (or lack of decision?) to be nominal affects the entire family, and you lose them. And building up the numbers is a very slow and painful (but joyful!) process.

Sorry, many thoughts there, but I've thought about this a lot.

Priest Thomas

Thanks Fr. Thomas, I think your thoughts are right on. I have had many of the same thoughts. The numbers given in the past just don't add up. Even with Byzantine Catholics being able to have two Divine Liturgies on Sunday the old numbers don't add up. And as with you, marriage with Latin Catholics has had the greatest impact on us. People din't leave the Catholicism, just the Byzantine Church for the Latin Church.

Dear Friends,

So I was right then . . .

Alex

All in all, maybe there should be a GACP (Generally Accepted Counting Procedures) for tallying membership? Accountants know what this implies.

Maybe the "thousands" were biblical proportions? not really "objective," but rather, symbolic? teleological? A case of "mutural admiration?"

Many baptisms can also be 'marginal' church members from other parishes, particularly from other sui juris churches who were looking to pay an obliging priest for sacraments. This did happen.

What exactly is "membership?" Baptisms, registration, weekly offerings, attendance, total communicants?

For all the different methodological approaches to counting, parameters, and criteria, one thing is consistent: the numbers began to decline rapidly since the mid-1950s.

Do the Latin dioceses, who also report to the Catholic Directory and Rome, have such a terrible time counting too? What form of voodoo counting methodology do they use?

Joe

Which, ironcally, is also the time that, in Orthodoxy, assessments began to be collected "per capita." That's when the numbers began to decline.

PT

Fr. Thomas,

Please elaborate how this is so. Didn't they count people before or did they start counting people who showed up only?

Joe

I have no idea. That's the question at hand. There is no doubt that even the real numbers began to decline in the 50s, but the incidental evidence indicates that the idea of 2,000 and 3,000 people in each parish, which is what was reported, *may* have been inflated. I wasn't there, and don't really have first hand knowledge of this.

I know of several of our OCA Churches that have incredibly huge crowds on Pascha (huge for our normal numbers.) Several of our churches have literally thousands of people on Pascha. Who are those poeple? Is that what you report? Are they Orthodox?

I know that some places went though the phone books and counted all the Slavic names as "members." Today, in Pittsburgh, it is not unusual to find Slavic names in every faith imaginable. Meanwhile, I have a "Mancini" family in my parish, and names of many other nationalities. It's definitely not 1950 anymore!

PT

The people who attend our Church exclusively on Pascha are, of course, "Easter Orthodox". Otherwise, we may recall that there are several categories: lies, damn lies, statistics, and ecclesiastical statistics. Incognitus