Overlapping canonical territories separated on the basis of ethnicity was condemned a heresy called “ethno-phyletism” when the Bulgarians tried to do it within the bounds of the Patriachate of Constantinople, once it had re-expanded to include formerly autocephalous Bulgaria during the Ottoman era, but somehow that’s been forgotten when the same position is taken vis-a-vis churches outside traditionally Orthodox lands.
I understand the basis of the objections — the fear that the restoration of canonical unity will take the form of autonomy under Constantinople, or autocephaly in a form in which the Greek majority runs roughshod over everyone else’s liturgical and ethnic traditions (e.g. no more all-night vigils, everyone must serve only vespers the evening before, and orthros on Sunday morning before Liturgy) — but the objections are wrong-headed.
Worst, I think, are those coming from my own Patriarch. Patriarch +JOHN, like Patriarch +IGNATIUS before him, seems to suffer from the delusion that the interests of his flock in the Middle East are better served by the “influence” of a specifically Antiochian church in America with the U.S. government — a delusion the late Metropolitan +PHILLIP cultivated, as it served his own interests, but which has no basis in fact. I honestly believe that the interests of all the Orthodox churches in the Old Countries would be better served by the United States having a single Orthodox Church that could speak on their behalf.
I was at a local Greek Fest, and the parish had many members who were not Greek. One family we know had concerns about the changes going on, and that they will not be as Greek in the future.
I do remember attempts to make an Orthodox church of America. There was a few small parishes when I lived in Nebraska. What came of that?