The Chinese Evangelicals Turning to Orthodoxy {More believers from China and Taiwan are finding Eastern Christianity appealing. }

Christianity Today ^ | January 8, 2026 | Yinxuan Huang

[Cronos]

Justin Li grappled with questions about justice, morality, and the meaning of life. Li became a believer through a campus Bible study shortly after he began attending its meetings.

Li worshiped in an evangelical church that held contemporary services shaped by joyful, fast-paced praise songs. But the upbeat worship music, coupled with his busy work schedule, “made his heart even less quiet,” said Li.

Then he stumbled upon Ancient Faith Radio, a digital network of broadcasts offering Eastern Orthodox liturgical music and teaching. The melodies he listened to were simple, solemn, and contemplative. “It felt like another world,”.

Li began exploring the Eastern Orthodox tradition while studying theology at the University of Oxford’s Wycliffe Hall. He read widely, comparing Protestant and Orthodox arguments about the faith, and found the Orthodox responses “more persuasive than expected.” He joined the Orthodox church in China in 2022.

“There was a deep dissonance between the beauty I found in the writings of the early church and the functional pragmatism of much [of] evangelical church life,”..

Li is not the only evangelical of Chinese descent who has turned eastward in recent years. A burgeoning number of Chinese believers find Eastern Orthodoxy appealing because it offers a connection to a historically rooted faith and a richer experience of the spiritual life—aspects that contemporary evangelicalism seems to lack. ... Although all of them first came to faith within evangelical traditions, their shift eastward arose not from any frustrations with evangelicalism but from a deeper intellectual and spiritual search shaped by their academic formation. ... Lin also sensed a depth to prayer that she had never experienced before. Previously, she regarded prayer as a response to an “immediate spiritual feeling,” but she now understood that prayer could also be a “formative” experience that would shape her over time.

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TOPICS: Current Events; Ecumenism; General Discusssion; Orthodox Christian
KEYWORDS:

[Cronos]

“Orthodoxy reordered my spiritual life—it taught me to pray before I feel ready and to be formed through habit, not just emotion,” she said.

...
Li remains at peace with his decision to become an Orthodox believer. “People are looking for a faith that is not only true but solid: something that can stand when everything around them is changing,” he said.

A delegation from Kievan Rus’, upon visiting the Hagia Sophia in the 10th century, reportedly told their prince, “We knew not whether we were in heaven or on earth.” This awe helped inspire the Christianization of the Rus’,

[Cronos]

Orthodox ping

[Flatus I. Maximus]

Having watched the Episcopal Church go from preaching Christianity to preaching the Gospel of Infinite Diversity and Queerness, I certainly can understand the attraction of Orthodoxy.

[Cronos]

But wasn’t the ECUSA move over decades? Starting with the Lambeth piece in 1930 accepting divorce?

[Samurai_Jack]

“Orthodoxy reordered my spiritual life—it taught me to pray before I feel ready and to be formed through habit, not just emotion,” she said.

Ya, there’s definitely something to this. Orthodoxy brings a structure to faith that you can fall back on when the emotion fails you. Back to the roots. That’s often where the rubber meets the road where it comes to relationship with The Lord. Connecting even when you don’t ‘feel’ it is a key to appreciate blessings often overlooked.

[Wilderness Conservative]

The Chinese obviously love their children too much to do the Catholic thing.

[Cronos]

China has 12 million Catholics,

[Wilderness Conservative]

1 in a thousand? There’s always someone who didn’t get the memo.

[butlerweave]

I heard the Chinese were worshiping Draco Malfoy