Illinois and Missouri Orthodox Churches to Organize Conference

February 8, 2003

Source: St. Louis Post-Dispatch

On February 8, 2003 the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported that "Orthodox Witness, a two-year-old St. Louis-based, pan-Orthodox organization backed by the region's 13 Missouri and Illinois Orthodox churches, is organizing its second annual 'A Faith for All People' conference Feb. 22... at St. Louis Community College... Hatzidakis, Orthodox Witness founder, finds that many Christians know little church history. 'They draw a big blank between the apostles and Martin Luther,' he said... 'When I say I am Orthodox, strangers always assume I am Jewish,' said the Rev. Theophan Koja, the St. Thomas church's pastor... Many of the 13 Christian Orthodox churches' rosters include Anglo-Saxon, German, Scotch, Irish or French surnames along with the Greek, Russian, Serbian Romanian and Bulgarian surnames of the immigrants who founded the congregations in the early 20th century."