The GO's have to acknowledge that despite their best efforts to water
down the religion, there are still (and always going to be) a minority
who is looking for a deeper religious/ascetic experience than the
typical GO parish cares to provide. That's why there's Greeks at
Antiochian and Russian churches --- both our Deacon and Parish Council
president are Greek, for that matter. As long as they deliver
"Orthodoxy-Lite", they're going to get people who leave to find a better
experience.

In Greece itself, although 98% of the people nominally identify
themselves as Orthodox, only some 20% attend church at any time other
than the major holidays. Greece is *not* a very religious country.

As can be expected, when immigrants come to the U.S., they bring their
religious attitudes with them. But, historically, the new arrivals
have gravitated to the churches, for the simple reason that the
churches were the hubs of the local Greek communities. People who
never darkened the church door with their presence, in Greece, became
fairly regular churchgoers in the U.S. because the parish was their
main social networking connection.

Now, something interesting happened. Through mere proximity to the
church, many of the immigrants gradually became more religious.

The next development, which took place more slowly, was cultural
assimilation into the American landscape. As the next generations
became more "American" and lost their Greek identity, they didn't
necessarily become less religious, but they often found their
religious expression outside of Greek Orthodoxy -- sometimes even
including shifting to Orthodox churches that weren't Greek.

There seems to be a "sweet spot" among Greek Americans, so that the
partially assimilated (that is, those that still retain a Greek
identity while outwardly conforming to the American culture) are more
likely to take part in the religious life of Greek parishes than
either the totally unassimilated (who have the Greek secular outlook)
or the totally assimilated, who are as likely as not to migrate to
other churches.

That's why I've been saying that to survive and prosper, the GOA has
to prolong this "sweet spot" as long as possible, by promoting the
Greek cultural identity. That's why the Greek language classes,
dances, festivals, sponsored trips to Greece, etc., are so important.
The Greek culture and religion mutually reinforce each other in
America.

There's a difference between, on the one hand, promoting Greek culture
and language by having language classes and festivals and trips "home"
and, on the other hand, insisting on having half the liturgy in Greek.
The latter is likely to be unattractive to potential converts and may
not be understood well even by those of Greek ancestry.

Attractiveness to converts is rather low on the list of priorities of

On Sat, 07 Nov 2009 18:00:05 -0500, "Percival P. Cassidy"<Nob... at (no spam) NotMyISP..net> wrote:

There's a difference between, on the one hand, promoting Greek culture
and language by having language classes and festivals and trips "home"
and, on the other hand, insisting on having half the liturgy in Greek.
The latter is likely to be unattractive to potential converts and may
not be understood well even by those of Greek ancestry.

Attractiveness to converts is rather low on the list of priorities of
Greek parishes. (The attitude is that the church is a cosa nostra
("our thing").) They'll grudgingly accept converts, but with
suspicions as to their motives (unless they're spouses of cradle
Orthodox). Perhaps the use of Greek in the liturgy is just another
defense mechanism to keep converts away! As for the cradle Orthodox,
understanding the words of the liturgy isn't that important to them.
Heck, even in Greece, if the truth be told, most people don't have a
perfect grasp of ecclesiastical Greek. The liturgy is appreciated more
for its general atmospherics than for specific content. If the priest
just mumbled his way through the whole thing (and some do), it would
all be the same to the people witnessing the event. As a matter of
fact, this attitude among the Orthodox is the main impetus for the
growing pentacostal and evangelical Protestant movements in Greece.