Alexey D. Krindatch,
Director for Membership Growth and Research

Alexey D. Krindatch is a sociologist of religion. He directs the Patriarch Athenagoras Orthodox Institute's Parish Life Project.

Alexey Krindatch was born on May 22, 1966, in Moscow, Russia, to a family of scientists. He graduated cum laude from the Moscow State University in 1988 with a major in human and economic geography. From 1988 - 91, he continued post-graduate studies at the Institute of Geography of the Russian Academy of Sciences (Moscow, Russia). He further augmented his education by completing a certificate program on "Religion, Human Rights and Religious Freedon" at Columbia University (New York, USA) in 1995 -96.

From 1991 - 94, Alexey Krindatch worked as a research associate at the Center of Geopolitical Studies of the Institute of Geography (Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia). His work during this period focused on the subject of religion in the former Soviet Union and on the problems of religious freedom in post-Communist countries, especially Russia, Ukraine, Byelorussia, Georgia and Moldova.

Since 2000, Alexey has been increasingly involved in the study of American Orthodox Churches. From 2000 to 2001, he compiled the first ever county level national statistical database on the parishes of all Orthodox Christian churches in the USA for the national "Religious Congregation Membership Study," sponsored by the Lilly Endowment, Inc.

In 2005, Alexey Krindatch joined the Patriarch Athenagoras Orthodox Institute with the particular goal to delvelop and administer the Institute's Parish Life Project.

Alexey holds memberships in a number of professional associations. He is author of more than 50 publications including Geography of Religions in Russia, published in the USA in 1996.

Publications from the Parish Life Project are available at:
http://www.orthodoxinstitute.org/parish_needs.html

For Alexey Krindatch's earlier studies on the state of Orthodox Christianity in America go to:
http://hirr.hartsem.edu/research/orthodoxindex.html