Evangelical Orthodox Church

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The Evangelical Orthodox Church is an Eastern Orthodox Christian movement with its origins in Evangelical Protestantism, particularly in the Campus Crusade for Christ student missionary organization, that came to embrace an Eastern tradition of Christianity.

Campus Crusade missionary Peter E. Gillquist (1938-) established in 1973 in Chicago a network of house churches throughout the United States, aiming to restore a primitive form of Christianity, which was called the New Covenant Apostolic Order (NCAO).

Researching the historical basis of the Christian faith, Gillquist and his colleagues found sources for this restoration in the writings of the early Church Fathers. This led the group to practice a more liturgical form of worship than in their previous evangelical background. In 1979, the Evangelical Orthodox Church (EOC) was organized.

The belief of needing Apostolic Succession led most members of the EOC to join the Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese of North America in 1987. The group of 20 parishes became known as the Antiochian Evangelical Orthodox Mission, lasting until 1995 when it was disbanded and the parishes put under the standard diocesan framework of the Archdiocese. Some parishes which did not join the Antiochians eventually joined the Orthodox Church in America, while a few remain independent and still use the EOC name.

Currently, Bishop Jerold Gliege serves as the presiding bishop of the EOC, which has seven congregations and a monastery spread across the United States (IA, IL, IN, WA), Canada (SK), and Sweden.