This dissertation explores the ascribed social meanings and processes of conversion among contemporary American converts to Eastern Orthodoxy in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Employing the ethnographic field methods of participant observation and interviewing at two primary fieldsites, a Greek Orthodox and Orthodox Church in America parish, I examine how converts, as choice-makers using consumer-like strategies and print/electronic media to study and compare religious options, reflect and effect change in communities commonly regarded in the United States as preserving the languages and customs of various immigrant groups from Eastern, Southeastern Europe, and the Middle East. Much of the existing scholarly literature on Eastern Orthodoxy in the United States characterizes it as an ancient, unchanging form of Christianity that is highly resistant to the conditions of what religion scholars refer to as the spiritual marketplace of expansive religious diversity and individual choice-making in regard to religious affiliation. Yet, through the lens of conversion, I chart how the language and methods of the marketplace are taken-for-granted elements of church life, engrained in the words and actions of Orthodox clerics and lifelong church members in addition to converts themselves. Drawing upon the work of sociologist Ann Swidler, I argue that the marketplace remains one of the most powerful toolkits or cultural repertoires, although by no means the only one, by which local Orthodox Christians in Pittsburgh have come to understand their religious lives and serves as a new means of gauging the influence and engagement of Orthodox Christianity with its surrounding American culture.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:PITT/oai:PITTETD:etd-04192008-112632 |
| Date | 16 June 2008 |
| Creators | Slagle, Amy |
| Contributors | Adam Shear, Alexander Orbach, Paula Kane, Nancy Condee, Kathleen DeWalt, Milica Bakic-Hayden |
| Publisher | University of Pittsburgh |
| Source Sets | University of Pittsburgh |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.library.pitt.edu/ETD/available/etd-04192008-112632/ |
| Rights | unrestricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached hereto a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to University of Pittsburgh or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report. |
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