Michael Swoyer Oral History

Oral histories created by University of Kansas students, staff and faculty as part of the Religion in Kansas Project are archived at http://hdl.handle.net/1808/12524 in KU ScholarWorks, the digital repository of the University of Kansas.Oral history with Michael Swoyer, conducted by Lev Smyth in Kansas City, Kansas on April 23rd, 2018. This interview is conducted with Michael Swoyer, a parishioner of Holy Trinity Orthodox Church, an OCA (Orthodox Church in America) Church in Overland Park, Kansas. Michael discusses the appeal of conversion to Eastern Orthodoxy, his own conversion experiences in the midwest, and the structure of the Orthodox Church in America. He also discusses the topics of gender and children in Eastern Orthodox churches and how these topics relate to the broader historical arc of the the OCA. This interview was conducted for the Religion in Kansas Project as part of semester-long internship with the University of Kansas Department of Religious Studies