Then why does so much of your faith revolve around Mary?:
"Then why does so much of your faith revolve around Mary?"
Attend a few Orthodox services (make sure they are in English), and you will see that the overwhelming center is Christ. We have virtually no icons of Mary that do not also contain Christ, and the fact that her importance derives from the fact she gave birth to the Savior is emphasized at every turn where she does appear in our liturgical texts.
I could ask in turn why you seem so determined to give the smack-down to any extra respect directed toward the mother of Christ. The same people who would stand up with respect for the President of the United States if he walked into the room throw a hissy if someone treats the woman who gave birth to the eternal God come in the flesh as anything other than some kind of surrogate mother heifer chosen at random.
If your reply is that it's just the prayer and veneration that bothers you, then why don't you at least treat Mary in your life and church with at least the same reverent respect that, say, most conservative Republicans treat the memory of Ronald Reagan?
Truth to be told, much of the fervor with which you hold to your beliefs about Mary seems to me to be motivated by little else than a determination to believe the opposite of whatever Catholics believe. It's not that we Orthodox don't understand that temptation to say the opposite of what Catholics do -- it's just that we try to resist it.