| Data from the Federal Census provides one view of the Orthodox. A particular problem arose in the 1991 Census and was continued in the 2001 Census. The Census form listed the eight major Christian denominations and invited people to either tick a box beside one of those groups, or to write in their denomination. Greek Orthodox was the only Orthodox denomination which was listed.
Seven additional Orthodox groups were classified by the Australian Bureau of Statistics totalling 126 447 people:
Albanian Orthodox -159
Antiochian Orthodox - 7 525
Macedonian Orthodox - 53 244
Romanian Orthodox - 1 471
Russian Orthodox - 18 506
Serbian Orthodox - 42 405
Ukranian Orthodox - 3 137
Another 38 441 people wrote in 'Orthodox' but did not specify to which Orthodox group they belonged. As a result, the full numbers and characteristics of the members of particular Orthodox groups are not very reliable. The information from the Census about the 'Orthodox' as a whole is more reliable, and the analysis in other sections is largely of the total Orthodox community.
Prior to 1947, the Orthodox made up a very small percentage of the Australian population. A few Greeks and Lebanese (then known as 'Syrians') arrived in the nineteenth century, and small numbers continued to arrive prior to the First World War. Others arrived between the World Wars, particularly as a result of the Greek military defeat in 1922.
Emigration was encouraged by the post-war Greek governments as part of the way of dealing with problems of poverty and underemployment following the Second World War and the subsequent civil war between pro- and anti-communist Greek factions.
From 1952, the Australian government encouraged the arrival of many Orthodox from Greece, Yugoslavia and other European countries with assisted passages. Between 1952 and 1971, the numbers climbed rapidly and, by 1971, the Orthodox accounted for 2.6 per cent of the population in Australia. The Orthodox have been between 2.6 and 2.8 per cent of the population since 1971.
Throughout the first half of the twentieth century, the actual numbers of Orthodox grew very gradually, from just over 1000 at the time of Federation to 17 000 in 1947. However, the numbers increased nearly twenty-fold between 1947 and 1971 to nearly 340 000.
The increase in the number of Orthodox was slight between 1991 and 1996, Orthodox gaining only 1 111 people. At the time this suggested that some people were dropping their identification with Orthodoxy. However, the 2001 data presents quite a different picture. The number of identifying Orthodox rose to 529 444, an increase of 32 429 or 6.1 per cent within that community. Some of this increase is likely to be owing to immigration. However, over-representation by persons aged 20 and 39 may mean that the rise in numbers is due to Orthodox families having children. As a proportion of the total population the increase was not that great, the Orthodox representing 2.82 per cent.
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