abstract
| - The Evangelical Orthodox Church (also known as the EOC) is a non-canonical group with roots in evangelical Protestantism which incorporates elements of Orthodoxy as well as Roman Catholicism, Lutheranism, and Anglicanism in its worship and doctrine. The greater part of the church, under the leadership of then-bishop Peter Gillquist, was received by chrismation into communion with the Antiochian Archdiocese in 1987, becoming the Antiochian Evangelical Orthodox Mission (AEOM), a distinctive group of parishes which has since been regularized into normal status within the archdiocese. Many of the former leaders of the EOC have become active and well-known leaders in the archdiocese, especially in missions work. A handful of bishops refrained from joining with Antioch, and continue to exist under the EOC name, though a few parishes have also subsequently joined the OCA. This group continues to serve as a bridge to Orthodoxy, occasionally seeing entire communities brought into the Church at once, as happened with St. John the Forerunner (formerly Holy Trinity) parish in Indianapolis and its outlying missions in 2002 (St. Stephen the First Martyr in Crawfordsville, IN, St. Athanasius in Nicholasville, KY).
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