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Orthodoxy is growing primarily from within. Many other churches, including the Catholics, can still make that claim. It is true that the orthodox are making converts from within evangelicallism. That's not necessarily a bad thing. But, come on. This is an *extremely* recent phenomenon, and it's powered as much by the evangelicals' reflexive aversion for the papacy as it is a search for Christian roots. Orthodoxy benefits because such folks hate the pope more than they hate what they think is the idolatry of Mary, and, when they see that there is no idolatry or any other thing in Orthodoxy that they had reason to abhor, they flock to it. Their only remaining aversion is for the guy in Rome, so your apostolic nature in your Church suffices for them. Meanwhile, it's not like we Catholics don't make *any* converts in these circles!

Orthodoxy is NOT growing primarily from within. It is treading water from within. ROCOR, the Antiochian Church, the Greek Church, are all reporting growing converts. I've head clergy say that the most growth they are seeing in clergy is coming from protestant churches. Priest will learn about the Orthodox church and convert after they retire and qualify for a pension.

As for Alaska, I grant you that. But it was still evangelized primarily as an eastward expansion of Russian Siberia. Hardly any native populations even existed in most od Siberia, and Alaska, while more densely populated, still was rather sparse, and the evangelization was comingled with Russian government and Russian Orthodox interests. That still bears out my point. They have been nowhere in Africa, Asia, Europe or the Americas where they didn't already exist prior to the age of exploration, Siberia and Alaska excepted. For the reasons I cited.

No where in Asia? That's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard.
http://www2.gol.com/users/ocj/TheOrthodoxChurchinJapan.htm
http://members.tripod.com/~Berchmans/orthodox.html
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/7734/church.htm
http://www.70south.com/news/1013676552/index_html
The orthodox church is on every continent.

The Old Calendar is 13 days off from the equinoxes. That is undeniable. Left unchecked, it will drift further. One day, given enough time, you will be celebrating Easter in October according to the Julian calendar. That even civil governments in Orthodox countries see the utility in realigning the calendar to reflect the seasons properly points out that there is no need for being so dug in liturgical uses. The Jews have nothing to do with it. They use an entirely different calendar that is bsed on lunar cycles, not a solar year. Their Passover and our Easter better coincide, because they simply take place on the day of the first full moon after the spring equinox (Passover), or the following Sunday (Western Easter). Since the Orthodox Julian calendar still nominally determines Easter based on an assumption of March 21 being the date of the equinox, but, in reality, their March 21 is only March 8, and therefore too early, they often have to wait for the second full moon after the actual equinox to determine Easter. Occasionally, when the full moon after the equinox is far enough ahead, it will fall after March 21 in BOTH calendars. But, when it occurs at other times (usually the case), the Orthodox are forced to wait till the next lunar cycle so that it "appears" to be after March 21 on their calendar. Early May is sometimes the result for Orthodox Easter. When Julian March 21 appears later and later relative to the Gregorian, it will be even further removed from the actual equinox, more lunations will have to pass, and Orthodox Easter will be heading into June, then July, and so forth. Astronomically, this situation makes absolutely no sense at all. It's time for us to all be on the same page in this. The Gregorian calendar is simply better. Let's get on with it.

The main reason for its rejection was that the celebration of Easter would be altered: contrary to the injunctions of canon 7 of the Holy Apostles, the decree of the First Ecumenical Synod, and canon 1 of Ancyra, Easter would sometimes coincide with the Jewish Passover in the Gregorian calendar.
From: http://www.goarch.org/en/ourfaith/articles/article7070.asp

National traditions are not the same as national churches. All Catholic nationalities are still united to the papacy, regardles of his or their actual ethnicity. People may have traditions as Germans, or Italians, or Polish, etc., but they all recognize the one head. This is not true in Orthodoxy. THAT kind of nationalism is what I'm talking about.

That is the heresy, the ONE HEAD. Further in your trip to Poland you skipped over the Ukraine where the Catholic church still has uniates mascarading as eastern rite orthodox.

Finally, I hope you read my post where I *specifically* cited the Orthodox for their courage in resisting the Communists, the Moslems, and others in their countries. What makes you think I didn't? You claim that the popes were "resting" in Rome while bishops were being murdered in Russia.

FYI there are those still beleive the Crimean War may have been a Catholic Conspiracy to cease Orthodox properties.

Nonsense. What were they supposed to do? They did what they could. So, I'm sure, did the Patriarchs of Constantinople involved at the time. Yet, I dare say, THEY saw all of these murders take place in Russia while they were comfortably ensconced in Istanbul. So what's your point? I NEVER said the Orthodox "had it easy" in Russia against the Soviets. Read the post again.

Modern Russian Society is where the brunt of Orthodox Christians live. The Russian Orthodox church is still not capitualting to modernism. You said the Orthodox Church never had to fight against secular culture, and that's why it had it easy and never HAD to change.

Whatever. Read the post AGAIN. I spoke of the secularized culture that inevitably derives from a heretical Christian one.

Orthodoxy *is* growing mostly from within, at least in the ethnic sense. Most of the converts in Russia and other former Soviet satellites are from ethnic Orthodox stock. Their families merely bypassed Orthodox observance for a few generations, so they are genuine converts. That's a good thing. And it is true that there are more than a few conversions of evangelicals and disaffected Catholics in places like the US. But they are still the minority. And even there, the converts seek out the Orthodox, not vice versa. Of course it's on every continent, but in most cases it merely followed its own adherents in their migrations. Very little evangelical proselytization has ever occured with a view to actually Christianizing the pagans wherever they may be found. That was my point.

Your calendar is 13 days off relative to the vernal equinox that determines Easter. Period. The Gregorian calendar sought to realign March 21 with the equinox, since that was the date of the equinox at the time of the Council of Nicaea in 325. The equinox is the equinox. It happens when it happens, no matter what date either one of us wants to call it. But March 21 is supposed to be important to assign to the equinox. The Gregorian has it fall on March 21 (or occasionally in the late hours of March 20). It will take something like 3500 years to drift one full day if uncorrected. The Julian has March 21 fall on Gregorian April 3, thirteen days after the astronomical reality of the vernal equinox has already taken place. If March 21 is such an important date to both of us, and we have already made the adjustment, there's only one way to go here. The division over this is just silly. Even the Anglicans decided that enough was enough, and got in line with the improved Gregorian calendar around 1750.

The "heresy" of one head? The *heresy* of primacy? You have been separated from us for so long that you have built up primacy as an issue involving *heresy*??? I dunno about that! It seems to me that the Orthodox, generally, are willing to assign primacy to the bishop of Rome with certain restrictions, but we differ as to the boundaries of papal authority. The principle of primacy is not denied and watered down to the point where to even refer to it is a "heresy," is it? Perhaps I have misread the statements of the last few Ecumenical Patriarchs and others on this topic. It's not my business to tell you what your own Church teaches, but I think you will find that the basic principle of some element of primacy is considered worth exploring from your point of view, and therefore is not a "heresy," for the mere mention of which anathemas flow.

As for the Ukrainians, I fail to see the connection. The Catholics and Ukrainian Orthodox have always coexisted. The Soviets did their darnedest to undermine both Churches. They were particularly zealous in this regard with the Catholics, as they were "under a foreign head." Many Catholic churches were ripped away. The Church lost huge amounts of its own patrimony. Now that religious freedom has, relatively speaking, made a comeback in Russia, the Catholics want at least some of their former property back. The Orthodox, xenophobic as usual, have moved heaven and earth to get the secular government to not officially recognize anything but Orthodoxy. Where's the freedom? Catholics, a sizable minority, but a minority just the same, want their rights. That some of them seek these rights at the expense of the Orthodox in some of the property disputes is perfectly understandable. I suppose your opposition to that is also perfectly understandable. But neither of us should whine about it. The situation is complex, and a massive scandal against the letter and spirit of John 17:20-21. We both need to move more toward each other, instead of demanding that the "other side" makes all of the movements forward.

I spoke of the secularized culture that inevitably derives from a heretical Christian one. Russian orthodoxy, and the rest of Orthodoxy in the homelands, doesn't deal with religious modernism or the post-Christian secularism derived from Protestantism. All of that stuff is ovr here, and stems from the multiplicity of sects coming out of the so-called Reformation. It just isn't an issue for the Orthodox. It may become one as time goes on, particularly in Orthodox outposts in places like the US, but it's not a big thing yet. Therefor, Orthodoxy is relatively untainted at its lower levels by clashes with post-Christian religious modernism and post-Christian secularism derived from a non-apostolic understanding of Christianity. That's ALL I meant. I was NOT talking about battling secularism in the atheistic Communist mode. You guys were simply battling *that* brand of secularism for survival, and I already said (in two posts!) that I have great admiration for that. If you want to argue with me about the fact that I value the Orthodox for this, fine. But read carefully enough to know what I mean by "secularism" before you go off.