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I've been in Orthodox Churches in Greece with pews, though they are rare. Usually one sees folding chairs. In our parish, the choirs have had robes for at least 75 years and have used organs that long too, though only on a very infrequent basis and not at all the past few years. I know that choirs in the big churches in Greece wear robes. The "Protestant" attitude perception usually depends on whose ox is getting gored and where the person with the perception is coming from. The development of the Greek Orthodox Church in America lead to a protestant model of parish asset governance. On a diocesan and national level, there were moves to a greater involvement of the laity at the expense of the hierarchy, but that has pretty much gone by the boards and in any event, it was never as "democratic" as the Church of Cyprus, for example. Electric candles I have seen and as I understand it, it is because of a belief that either fire codes or insurance companies ban the use of open flames. For all I know, that is or was true in some places. We have limitations on their use here. I must say I never seen hand waving in an Orthodox Church, unless its a child waving at his papou or yiayia.

"The Orthodox church in some places is unrecognizable. Not that you will ever hear that from other members. We keep those secrets to ourselves. But I am a black sheep."

Black sheep!!! More like Balkan Mountain Bandit...like me, of course. Besides, you're a Serb; Serbs are like Greeks, only less notorious and more polite, usually.

Kolo, with all due respect, Serbs don't even come close in politeness to the Greeks. Afterall, they almost pride themselves of the self-awarded title homo balcanicus. But when it comes to tradition and Orthodoxy, time stood still in reverence to Christ and the Holy Fathers. Only in America have I seen Serbian Churches with pews -- for they were acquired from other denominations, and because American Serbs, born generations in the U.S. just can't imagine standing for 90 minutes in reverence to God. Never have I seen a Serbian church with uniformed choir, electric musical instrument or electric candles. Much less have I ever seen Divine Liturgy interrupted for pig-and-lamb roast fund raising drive! It's almost profane.

"We have limitations on their use here."

I'm curious -- what kind of legal limitations do you have on open flames in your locale?

While we have artificial lights in our parish, generally none are used during the services themselves. There is plenty of light coming through our slightly opaque windows to light daytime services, and our church is lit entirely by oil lamps on the iconostasis and the walls, and candles in the "sand boxes" for all evening and night-time services (except for Matins of Pascha, when you want it as bright as possible!) We don't leave any flames burning when we leave the building, of course...

"In our parish, the choirs have had robes for at least 75 years and have used organs that long too, though only on a very infrequent basis and not at all the past few years. I know that choirs in the big churches in Greece wear robes."

While we certainly have our things we aren't proud of (a certain Greek parish in Hollywood is particularly notorious), both the consistency of the tradtional witness and the general trends are quite remarkable by comparison to the general ecclesiastical environment we are swimming in here in the US.

What I have observed in most Orthodox churches in the US is a trend back toward the traditional. I have seen a couple of Greek churches and one Serbian church remove their old "westernized" sentimental icons, and have incredible traditional icons painted to replace them. I've seen several OCA parishes rid themselves of pews (we have very few left), and several Greek and Antiochian parishes either remove or simply never use their old electric organs. My in-laws' Greek parish has long since rid the choir of robes, and the only ones who wear robes there now are the psalti with their riassa...

The trend in Russian tradition churches is to eradicate the old 19th century romantic-era musical settings and replace them with more traditional chant, and I've seen Greek parishes move away from the turn-of-the century polyphonic settings toward traditional Byzantine chant (although not fast enough for me!) Etc...

The big advantage that we have over western churches in these regards are that the liturgical traditions of the "ancient and undivided church" (to use the term of the most traditional Anglicans) are not nearly as distant for us, and that the traditional has a built-in weight of authority for us that simply trumps or at least can counter-balance any innovating trends -- even those driven or winked at by hierarchs.