Mediating Orthodoxy: Convert Agency and Discursive Autochthonism in Ireland

According to the 2011 census, Orthodox Christianity is the fastest growing religious grouping in Ireland, showing a growth rate of 117 per cent since 2006. It is also the fastest growing when viewed over the last 20 years, with an annualised growth rate of 27.4 per cent over the period (An Phríomh-Oifig Staidrimh 2012: 7). In 1991, there were just 358 Orthodox in Ireland according to the official record; by 2011, this had grown to 45, 223. This considerable increase is largely the result of labour migration from Eastern Europe, but mixed marriages and a growing number of conversions to Orthodoxy also contribute to this trend. The presence of large numbers of Orthodox labour migrants is the result of the fall of the communist regimes in Eastern Europe and the subsequent accession of majority Orthodox countries to the EU. However, there are other strands to the Orthodox presence that stem from Ireland’s close geographical and political connections with the UK, most notably the presence in the early twentieth century of a Russian émigré community, the arrival of Greeks and Greek Cypriots in 1950s, and the establishment of the Antiochian Orthodox Church in both Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland.