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"Do you think that there is a chance that Orthodoxy will eventually follow the rest of the Christian churches down the slippery slope? I'm not challenging you, just wondering."

Nope! We are famous for not having had a new theological idea since the end of the 7th Ecumenical Council! :)

Seriously, the apparent meltdown of ECUSA, at least one branch of the Lutherans, the UCC, etc, etc, etc and finally the turmoil within the Roman Catholic Church here in America (and the empty pews in Europe) have given great pause to our hierarchs in their ongoing discussions with various Christian denominations and with the Church of Rome. The real truth is that what is going on around us is frightening. The result has been, especially over the past 10 years or so, and increasing and conservative, perhaps I should say, traditional Orthodox catechesis of the laity and the rather astonishingly large increase in the number of priestly vocations resulting in very conservative young ordinands. It wasn't all that long ago that Greek priests, by their garb, were indistinguishable from the local Roman Catholic and Episcopalian priests. Now the young guys wear their clerical hats and cassocks just about everywhere and are readily identified as Orthodox priests. The large numbers of converts coming into the Church from Protestantism have brought a certain American style conservatism and a real experience with the way the modern American mind works in religious matters. All of this seems to have confirmed and strengthened Orthodoxy's usual conservatism and as an interesting sidelight, has rather dramatically changed the focus of the autocephally debate with the Church here in America.

I think we are safe for now and the continuing decline of Christianity in America may well keep us vigilant for the foreseeable future. Orthodoxy has had a lot of experience with this, you know, 1400 years of it in some parts of the Mohammedan world. Just today after the Liturgy we were remarking on how all those years under the Mohammedans actually preserved the Faith, in a strange sort of way.