Like many Americans, the Eastern Orthodox converts in this study are

participants in what scholars today refer to as the “spiritual marketplace”

or quest culture of expanding religious diversity and individual choice-

making that marks the post-World War II American religious landscape.

In this highly readable ethnographic study, Slagle explores the ways in

which converts, clerics, and lifelong church members use marketplace

metaphors in describing and enacting their religious lives.

Slagle conducted participant observation and formal semi-structured

interviews in Orthodox churches in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and

Jackson, Mississippi. Known among Orthodox Christians as the “Holy

Land” of North American Orthodoxy, Pittsburgh offers an important

context for exploring the interplay of Orthodox Christianity with the

mainstreams of American religious life. Slagle’s second round of research

in Jackson sheds light on the American Bible Belt where over the past

thirty years the Orthodox Church in America has marshaled significant

resources to build mission parishes.

Relatively few ethnographic studies have examined Eastern Orthodox

Christianity in the United States, and Slagle’s book fills a significant gap.

This lucidly written book is an ideal selection for courses in the sociology

and anthropology of religion, contemporary Christianity, and religious

change. Scholars of Orthodox Christianity, as well as clerical and lay

people interested in Eastern Orthodoxy, will find this book to be of

great appeal.