SACRAMENTO — When observers think about American Christianity, they obviously focus on the country’s Protestant roots, as well as its large Roman Catholic population. Around 48 percent of Americans identify as Protestants of one variety or another (and of different levels of observance, obviously) and 23 percent as Catholics. It’s rare to find much mention of Eastern Orthodoxy, which had traditionally been limited to immigrants (and their descendants) from Russia, Greece, Eastern Europe, and the Middle East. Membership in their various churches account for around 0.5 percent of the U.S. population.

But, over the years, Orthodoxy has become a significant draw for American evangelicals who have sought a more timeless and liturgical form of Christian worship. A recent news report from NPR suggests that “Orthodox Christian churches are drawing in far-right American converts,” but — as an Orthodox convert of 26 years — I’ve seen little of this. Instead, the growth of American Orthodoxy started in the 1980s and exploded after forward-thinking Metropolitan Philip Saliba of the Antiochian archdiocese ordained many Protestants as priests.

“Orthodoxy, one of the world’s oldest branches of Christendom, is gaining newcomers from the Billy Graham and Campus Crusade sectors of evangelical Christianity,” reported the Washington Post in 1992. “Although the movement is not at flood stage yet, 2,000 converts from evangelicalism have doubled their numbers in the past five years in one branch of Orthodoxy, the Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese of North America.” The church still mostly represents Christians in Syria, Lebanon, and Palestine but has a prominent U.S. presence.

One shouldn’t expect (or want) a church based in the Middle East to have similar perspectives to one that was founded in the United States, of course. American Christians often forget there’s still a small but vibrant (and often-persecuted) Christian community in the Muslim world — and it’s important to have a voice that speaks for these ancient communities. Nevertheless, as a member of that church, I still expect it to put the Gospel, rather than ethnic political sensibilities, in the forefront. Orthodox churches have at times operated too much like ethnic social clubs.

And that brings me to the war in the Middle East and the ugly aftermath. It’s been heartbreaking. I’m a Jewish convert (via evangelicalism) to Orthodoxy. My father was a Nazi concentration camp survivor. I have relatives living in Israel. I love my Arab brethren and have been treated with nothing but kindness from them. I feel great sorrow for the Palestinians living in Gaza, but it was horrifying to watch Hamas slaughter Israeli civilians and to witness anti-Israel protesters chanting outwardly genocidal rhetoric. It seems as if the church should be able to issue a statement that accounts for everyone’s suffering.

Instead, a statement from the Holy Synod of Antioch (a gathering of church leaders), which recently convened in Lebanon, offered a most uncharitable take on these horrifying events:

[T]he Fathers reflected on what has happened and is happening in occupied Palestine and what has afflicted and befallen the honorable Palestinian people. The position of the Church of Antioch … is clear, bright, and well-known. It affirms the importance of Jerusalem in the conscience of every Christian and Muslim, and the right of return of the Palestinian people and the establishment of their independent State.

The Church of Antioch condemns the siege imposed today on the Palestinian people and on the Gaza Strip in particular, and strongly denounces the genocide committed there, right before the eyes of the world. The violence that is taking place is the result of violating international laws and resolutions which are intended for the application of justice. It is a continuation of the falsification of the identity of the land and history and an attempt to obliterate the outstanding Palestinian cause.

Therefore, the Synod Fathers offer fervent prayers to the King of Peace and Lord of Mercies, to wipe away every tear from the eyes of the Palestinian people, and to remove all injustice, oppression, homelessness, and displacement.

There’s not a word about Hamas’ senseless slaughter, its beheading of children and murder of other innocent civilians. They offer not a crumb of charity or prayer for anyone other than the Palestinians — and, indeed, use the latest horror to advocate purely political outcomes (right of return, etc.).The statement doesn’t specify what it means by the “outstanding Palestinian cause.” It pointedly ignores Jews when it affirms the importance of Jerusalem to Christians and Muslims. As a parishioner, I wonder if this is the statement of my church or political activists.

Furthermore, a letter on the archdiocese’s website explains that Israel’s counterattack (and it’s, of course, fair game to criticize its response) “is the collective punishment that the people must endure for the unity reconciliation agreement made last month between Hamas and Fatah, our two political parties in the Palestinian Authority. Israel does not want peace but rather wants to see us in ‘pieces.’” Hamas as a mere political party? From what I’ve seen, other major Orthodox archdioceses (the Orthodox Church in America, the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia, the Greek Orthodox archdiocese) have expressed important concerns, but nothing of substance on the overall crisis.

I’ve read little criticism of the Antiochian statement but was heartened by an open letter from a fellow parishioner, a constitutional lawyer named Eric Grant (which I quote from with his permission):

Did it condemn the genocidal ideology of Hamas that seeks to extirpate every Jew ‘from the river to the sea,’ that is, to render the whole land Judenrein? Is that ‘the outstanding Palestinian cause’ of which the statement speaks? No, the statement condemned not a single atrocity committed by Hamas on October 7. It had no word of condemnation for those who filled that place with the blood of the innocent.… The statement of the Synod Fathers, who are blessed to dispense the bread of angels, offered instead the stone of callousness.… To blather about U.N. resolutions in the face of such monstrous evil is to see the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and ignore the wooden shank being plunged into your other brother’s eye.

Views similar to the synod’s are rampant in the Orthodox world. The Orthodox Reflections website offers this analysis of the violence: “If you want condemnation of whatever Hamas did in regards to targeting civilians in any way, then there you have it.” Yeah, whatever it is Hamas did. And watch out for what comes after the “but” — “we can’t treat their actions as if they happened in a vacuum.” They “were carried out by escaped prisoners from the world’s most closely guarded and surveilled open air prison.” And then “the Western propaganda apparatus kicked into high gear to dehumanize the Palestinians.” We can’t blame the archdiocese for the words of anonymous Orthodox bloggers, but such articles don’t get published in a vacuum.

I can’t say that I’m surprised by any of this. After Russia launched its brutal invasion of Ukraine, our archdiocese offered a one-paragraph statement from the metropolitan, making the flaccid point that “[a]s Orthodox Christians, we oppose any type of violence or injustice throughout the world.” Such opposition, however, didn’t merit pointing out who exactly perpetrated that injustice. Another Orthodox church (the Orthodox Church in America) did, in fact, call out the “war of aggression waged by the Russian Federation against Ukraine,” although we’ve seen despicable support for the war from the Russian church at its highest levels.

Many Orthodox parishioners are appalled by the violence in Ukraine, but Orthodox leaders have spent far more time criticizing the Ukrainian government for its treatment of the Russian-linked Ukrainian Orthodox Church, as if that’s the greatest injustice going on there. The Assembly of Canonical Orthodox Bishops of the United States offered milquetoast generalities about the Russian invasion but managed a stinging rebuttal to a Foreign Affairs article (even demanding its retraction) about “Putin’s Useful Priests.” Meanwhile, it’s not hard to find some Orthodox priest echoing the Russian view that the war is about defending against corrupt Western “woke” values.

And so it goes, the Orthodox Church — which many of us saw as a respite from the increasing politicization of American Protestantism and Catholicism — has joined forces with the authoritarian right (regarding Russia) and the authoritarian left (regarding Israel and Gaza). I still love my church but quote the words of St. John Climacus: “The first stage of this tranquility consists in silencing the lips when the heart is excited.” In other words, far better had the Antiochian bishops simply kept their mouths shut.

Steven Greenhut is a Sacramento-based writer. His political and religious opinions are solely his own. Write to him at stevengreenhut@gmail.com.