Each year before Christmas, leaders from the Russian Orthodox Church in America gather in a different city or town to discuss the important societal and religious problems facing the church. Next Tuesday through Thursday, for the first time, priests, deacons and a bishop from the six states that make up the Western American Diocese will convene in Seattle.
While many religious groups in the United States are watching their numbers and prospects for growth slowly dwindle, the Russian Orthodox Church is faced with the opposite issue having to incorporate a swelling number of Russian immigrants into their fold.
Since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, Russian immigrants have flocked to the United States, and many have sought the guidance of the Russian Orthodox Church, both as a house of Christian worship and as a place to find others speaking Russian.
More than 78,000 Russians have come to the United States in the past five years. In 2000, 63,000 people of Russian ancestry were living in the state, according to the Census Bureau, which doesn't record their religion. That's a 54 percent increase from 1990.
The Rev. Alex Kotar, priest of the St. Nicholas Cathedral in Seattle's Capitol Hill neighborhood, said that more than half of the 240 members of his congregation have come here from Russia in the past decade.
While some of the recent arrivals had preserved their Orthodox faith while in the Soviet Union, observing Christianity underground and hidden from the Soviet government, others came to the United States with no knowledge of the Russian Orthodox Church.
"They grew up in an atheist country," Kotar said. "When they came here, they realized they have an option now, and they want to be spiritual individuals."
Church member Tanya Willitts said the parish also helps ease assimilation. "A lot of immigrants, when they come to Seattle, they look for the church."
At the same time, many others have stayed away.
"The people who come from Russia come from a background of being persecuted for having any faith," said the Rev. Stefan Pavlenko, whose title is first substitute of the ruling bishop in the Western American Diocese, which incorporates 26 parishes in Washington, Oregon, California, Arizona, New Mexico and Idaho.
"They're very wary of being registered as a person of religion because they're paranoid to be a part of it."
When church leaders meet here next week at the St. Nicholas Cathedral, priests will lend spiritual support to each other and discuss the issues of the day. As the host, Kotar helped set the agenda, which will focus on marital discord and drug use among teenagers, problems that he says priests must be well-prepared to handle.
Kotar said another mounting problem is Internet brides from Russia, desperate to flee home by marrying Americans who aren't Russian Orthodox.
"When they (Russian women) come over, they want to pursue their belief," Kotar said. "In most cases, the men are fairly accommodating, but sometimes conflicts arise."
One tragic case was that of Anastasia Solovieva King, a mail-order bride lured from Kyrgyzstan to Seattle as a teenager, who was killed two years ago by her husband and another man. Her parents are members of Kotar's parish.
Kotar also said that there are problems with church members marrying people from different religious backgrounds, an issue common to all religions.
The Russian Orthodox Church is a branch of the Eastern Orthodox Church, which is divided into 15 autonomous regions around the world, largely divided by culture and language. The Russian Orthodox branch claims 40 million to 80 million members worldwide, with roughly 1 million in this country.
Members of the Eastern Orthodox Church stand when they pray, use a cross with three bars, and forbid three-dimensional images of Christ in the church. The church began when it split from Rome during the Great Schism of 1054 over theological questions and the pope's claim of authority.
Unlike Roman Catholicism, branches of the Eastern Orthodox Church do not have a single ruler like the pope. Rather, bishops convene to make collective decisions.
In the 1940s, Russian Orthodox Christians in the United States split from the church in the Soviet Union. Church leaders in the United States believed the split would be mended a decade ago, but that has not happened because of what Kotar said were scandals involving priests and the KGB.
"Even though it's been 10 years, there has not been contact there," Kotar said. "Hopefully, there will be a time when we can consider ourselves one church."