Indonesian Orthodox Church (Old Calendarist)

The Indonesian Orthodox Church (GOI; Indonesian: Gereja Ortodoks Indonesia) is a diocese which has been under the jurisdiction of the Church of the Genuine Orthodox Christians of Greece since 2019. The theology and praxis of the church are essentially the same as any other Eastern Orthodox Church. However, they are not in communion with the larger body of Eastern Orthodox Christians. The legal entity of the Indonesian Orthodox Church was founded and is still managed in day-to-day affairs by Daniel Bambang Dwi Byantoro. Its history is in many ways inseparable from his own.

History

The GOI was founded in 1991 after missionary work began in 1988 by Daniel Byantoro, who converted to Christianity from Islam in the mid-1970s and discovered Eastern Orthodoxy through Bishop Kallistos Ware's book The Orthodox Church while studying at a Protestant seminary in Seoul, Korea, in 1982. He was chrismated into the Orthodox Church by Archimandrite Sotirios Trambas in Korea in September 1983. In 1984, he spent some time on Mount Athos and then travelled to the US, where he studied in various theological schools. He was ordained a priest by Metropolitan Maximos of Pittsburgh, under the jurisdiction of the Ecumenical Patriarch, sometime between 1985 and 1987, before returning to Indonesia to begin establishing roots for the Orthodox Church there.

In September 1996, the Ecumenical Patriarch founded the Metropolitanate of Hong Kong and Southeast Asia, which became the de facto governing diocese in Indonesia.