This comes on the heels of a new report about “Orthodox Christianity in the 21st Century,” released by Pew on Nov. 8, which found that “over the last century, the Orthodox Christian population around the world has more than doubled and now stands at nearly 260 million. In Russia alone, it has surpassed 100 million, a sharp resurgence after the fall of the Soviet Union. Yet despite these increases in absolute numbers, Orthodox Christians have been declining as a share of the overall Christian population – and the global population – due to far faster growth among Protestants, Catholics and non-Christians.”

The report also found that many people who now identify as Orthodox Christians do not see religion as an important part of their lives. Demacopoulos was asked to explain this gap between religious identity and religious practice in much of the Orthodox world:

“It is very difficult for Americans to appreciate the ways in which religion and cultural identity overlap in the Orthodox world. For most Americans, religious commitment consists primarily of a set of doctrinal faith affirmations: “I believe in this and this, but not that.” In most of the world, however, religious identity and association operate on much deeper level, with strong, community-based, cultural associations,” Demacopoulos said.

“Being Orthodox is not so much about checking off a list of dogmatic propositions as it is being tied to local and regional culture. Thus, it would not at all be uncommon for someone in Greece or Russia to identify as Orthodox and participate in major community celebrations tied to Christianity (Easter, Christmas, Theophany, etc.) but not actually believe in the teachings of the church or, possibly, even in God.”

Read the full Q&A at the Pew FactTank blog.

In the United States, less than 1 percent of people identify as Orthodox Christians—however, with an estimated population in excess of 260 million worldwide, Orthodox Christianity represents the second largest Christian tradition in the world.

Now, a grant secured by two Fordham scholars will help bridge the gap between the U.S. population and this important segment of Christians living in some of the most significant global hot-spots.

The Orthodox Christian Studies Center at Fordham University has received a prestigious challenge grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), an independent federal agency and one of the largest funders of humanities programs in the United States. This marks the first time that the federal government has provided a grant related specifically to Orthodox Christian studies.

“The NEH grant is the strongest possible endorsement that the work of the Orthodox Christian Studies Center is unique, valuable, and necessary not simply for Orthodox Christianity or Catholic-Orthodox relations, but for the humanities writ at large,” said Aristotle Papanikolaou, Ph.D., professor of theology and co-founding director of the center.

The 3-to-1 matching grant requires the center to raise $1.5 million, which will be matched by a $500,000 award from the NEH. This resulting $2 million endowment will create the center’s Distinguished Scholar-in-Residence program and Dissertation Completion Fellowship program.

The new two programs will provide a unique opportunity for scholars and doctoral students. Both programs, which will eventually fund up to four scholars and two graduate students, are open to scholarship pertaining to orthodox studies in any academic discipline.

The Scholar-in-Residence program is unprecedented for the discipline, while the Dissertation Completion Fellowship program will become one of only two nationwide.

“Years ago, when we had first started thinking about the center, we realized that we could have the greatest long-term impact by sponsoring research, books, and conferences,” said George Demacopoulos, Ph.D., associate professor of theology and co-founding director of the center. “Now we want to create a space where scholars who are studying Orthodox Christian studies can have access to the resources they need to pursue their scholarship.”

Such scholarship, Demacopoulos said, is critical for engaging regions of the world—including the Middle East, Russia, and the Balkans—where Orthodox Christianity is the dominant expression of Christianity. A deeper understanding of orthodox culture is “fundamentally necessary” for those who wish to be involved in these regions through business, foreign affairs, or otherwise, he said.

Moreover, scholarship in Orthodox Studies would help to shed light on the complex relationship between Christianity and Islam, two religions that have typically been seen as pitted against one another.

“In many of these countries, there is a very complicated intersection of religion and politics, and religion and culture that is often entangled in interreligious conflict,” he said. “One possibility that this award enables is that the research that these scholars will do could inspire new ways of thinking about global citizenry and new ways of thinking about Muslim-Christian cohabitation.”

This is the first challenge grant earned by Fordham, which was one of only five institutions nationwide this year to receive the maximum award of $500,000.

“The grant speaks volumes about the quality of scholarship produced in the Orthodox Christian Studies program,” said Joseph M. McShane, S.J., president of the University.

Founded by the two theology professors in 2007, the Orthodox Christian Studies Center is the first university-based site for Orthodox Christian Studies in the western hemisphere.

“To take on the responsibility of Christian theology today demands a willingness to be transformed by serious … study of at least the three major forms of Christianity—Orthodox, Catholic and Protestant,” said David Tracy, S.T.L., S.T.D., the Andrew Thomas Greeley and Grace McNichols Greeley Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus at the University of Chicago.

“Orthodox theology in its diverse and sometimes conflictual forms is distinguished by its profoundly contemplative character,” Tracy said as part of this year’s Orthodoxy in America lecture on Nov. 28.

He pointed out that the understanding of all forms of Christianity is grounded in a realized human experience of God.

Orthodox theology illustrates that realization in its beauty, liturgy and history, he said. It is particularly strong in its great tragic theology and Russian apocalyptic theology. The latter, Tracy said, is often unjustly left by the wayside by theologians.

“As Virginia Woolf observed in her splendid essay, ‘The Russian Point of View,’ reading the Russians makes one feel suddenly in another, far stranger and deeper world,” he said. “Woolf is surely right to claim Russian art and thought is pervaded, above all, by soul.

“The Russian soul in its arts and its theologies, with its accursed questions, has unnerved and nourished all humanity,” he continued. “That single gift is as great as the contemplative serenity of Greek Orthodox theologies.”

Tracy said that the greatest tragedy in theology is the split between spirituality and theology that occurred when the study of theology was moved from monasteries into universities.

“This 14th-century separation of theology and spirituality allowed the commentator traditions and the later neo-scholastic traditions to develop a mystical theology separate from theology proper.”

Tracy told the audience that the social sciences also play a role in understanding theology.

“All Christian theological understandings are contemplative intuitions, both informed by—as well as to be challenged by and to challenge—other basic religious intuitions and often philosophical, historical and social-scientific arguments.”

Hard sciences, such as physics, also contain a theological element. For example, recent advances in string theory call for a fresh outlook on cosmic theology, he said.

“As a theologian, I have never witnessed a stronger call for some new contemplative theology of the cosmos. I turn with hope, once again, to Orthodox theology, the most practiced of contemplative-cosmic theologies.”

The lecture was sponsored by the Orthodox Christian studies program at Fordham.