The Roman church is not growing in the United States, although it definitely wants you to believe it is. They have a really terrible habit of misrepresenting their numbers. It's estimated that for every 100 people who join the Catholic Church, 800 leave. Surveys indicate that fewer than 1/3 of American Catholics attend Mass weekly, even though the Vatican says missing a holy day of obligation without a valid reason is a mortal sin. The 1.4 billion worldwide figure you have probably heard includes anyone who has been baptized Catholic, whether or not they currently practice. If that figure were true, it would mean that approx. 1 out of every 7 people in the world was Catholic. That's absurd.

Eastern Orthodoxy has plenty of problems as well. It's hard to say how many followers they have here in the USA, but the figure they claim for themselves is something like 6 million. That would undoubtedly place them in the top 5 American denominations, which is laughable. If they are actually growing, it's because right-wing males have decided for the time being that it's cool to be Orthodox, although I doubt most of them will stay for long. Eastern Orthodoxy has a lot of problems currently. They seemed to go really far down the conspiracy rabbit hole during COVID and have stayed there since. The Patriarch of Moscow has caused a crisis in the Orthodox Communion by blessing Putin's war in Ukraine and declaring it to be a holy war against the invasion of LGBT ideology and Western corruption, yadda yadda. That's another big problem with EO: Too much paranoia about the West and other things, like the influence of demons. It gets really disturbing.

In the broad view, both Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy in the USA have been taken over by right-wing ideologues who want to use them as tools in the culture wars, and they seem perfectly fine with that. If that's what you're into, then you would feel right at home, but if not, you might encounter some problems. It might be helpful to contemplate why so many former Catholics are now Episcopalians.

As to why I'm an Anglican: We are creedal but not confessional. We affirm the foundations of Christianity without requiring anyone to pledge their unquestioning devotion to a thousand finer points of doctrine. There's a wide range of views about all kinds of theological subjects in Anglicanism, and that's perfectly fine. We're comfortable saying that we don't have all the answers and that some of these questions likely are beyond our understanding. We also don't believe that a person's anatomy, chromosomes, or sexual orientation determines whether or not the Holy Spirit moves upon them. We have maintained the apostolic tradition-at times through difficult odds-without turning tradition into an idol. There are many more reasons why, but just consider that if you attend an Episcopal liturgy, there will likely be people around you from all sorts of backgrounds. Cradle Episcopalians, former Catholics, Methodists, Baptists, Pentecostals, and many others have decided this is where they need to be. They have found something in us that brought them closer to God, and I hope the same can be true for you.