“The Czarist Russian Orthodox conquest of the natives of Siberia and Alaska seems to have converted them on a spiritual level without destroying their native culture (I mean how they dressed, what language they spoke, etc). I think it is ingrained in Orthodoxy to try and convert on a national basis as they did the Slavs by meeting them in their culture and in their language.”
This is precisely the Orthodox way. Here in America we have many, many ethnicities in our parishes, something which has developed pretty much since I was a child. Back then, my parish was likely 90% Greek, with a few convert spouses and the rest Syrians. I thought Syria was part of Greece! Today we are a Pan-Orthodox parish. To drive that point home, mostly to new members, we recite the Our Father in Greek, Ukrainian, Church Slavonic, 2 Ethiopian dialects (Ge’ez and Amharic), Arabic, French, Hungarian and English. Believe it or not, it doesn’t add that much time to the liturgy.
For the children, the immigrants and the American converts it’s a real lesson in the universality of The Faith and The Church.
If that is an ordinary Sunday Pascha must seem like Pentecost what with the Paschal Greeting and Troparion in a multitude of languages.