Ah. That makes sense. I woulda thought the original Antiochenes would have presented the same ethnicity problem, but I guess they didn't strike Anglos as quite so alien. Maybe I'm skewed being Italian...to me it seems Greek Orthodox would be the natural choice. Switch the Sambuca with Ouzo and we're good!
That is interesting about your parish Kolo...do the Ethiopians etc. have any difficulty adapting to the Byzantine liturgy?
“Maybe I’m skewed being Italian...to me it seems Greek Orthodox would be the natural choice.”
When Gilquist and the “Evangelical Orthodox” came knocking on the door of the GOA insisting on a mass welcome into the GOA while retaining their forms and orders (all of which they had made up so far as the GOA was concerned, they were shown the door. +Met. Philip accepted them with some conditions which pretty much resolved the problems the GOA had with them. It is fair to say that the mass conversion has been a mixed blessing. One good result, I suppose, is that most American inquirers walking into an Antiochian Church today in America, except perhaps for here in the NE, will find parishes which are predominantly convert. As such they might feel more comfortable initially, but Orthodoxy is not a way of life for spiritual sissies nor is it “comfortable”. It is definitely not something which will accommodate American sensibilities or sensitivities. If an inquirer stays around and becomes Orthodox, the ethnic part,ironically, becomes an added attraction, or so I am told.
“...do the Ethiopians etc. have any difficulty adapting to the Byzantine liturgy?”
Not that I have ever seen. Their Divine Liturgies, as you probably know, are chanted in classical Ge’ez, a beautiful liturgical language. The liturgies themselves are almost identical to our Divine Liturgies so there’s not much to get used to. The women always dress in beautiful white for the liturgy and they take their shoes off in the narthex before entering the nave. On big feasts, the men also dress in white with almost royal looking robes. There’s no question that what they wear is the best they own. They take their Faith very, very seriously and we Greeks know we are blessed to have them as examples to us.