It's not a matter of maturity; it's a matter of culture, Kolo. remember, in Greece, people "walk" Orthodox. In Orthodox countries, Orthodoxy is a way of life (i.e. culture). is Orthodox.
In America, Orthodoxy is an unnatural graft: an Orthodox vine attached to a Protestant-secular way of life and a culture that is as far removed form Orthodoxy as one can imagine. Orthodoxy is a freak looked at from a normal American point of view.
It's a matter of perception. They walk in our churches, snell and see incense, candles, unintelligible chanting, bowing, crossing, talking to and kissing these pictures of people who look like something from Hindu paintings, and they think they are in some kind of an occult wiccan worship.
I had an LDS tell me that it was "morbid." He recalls people carrying a coffin around the church (Pascha, of course), and prostrating before it.
That reminded me of someone once telling me that if martians walked into a church they would report to their bosses back home that earthlings worship some dead guy, and engage in cannibalism, because they eat and drink blood. Distorited perceptions are powerful determinants of attitude.
How can an Orthodox American go out on a Friday night and have a drink and hot wings with a bunch of guys when he is supposed to be fasting? Oh, yeah, that, fasting...Happy hours are on Wednesdays...but we are supposed to be fasting then too.
We fast half of the year all in all in a country where fasting is unheard of. We fast either at Christmas (old calendar churches) or Thanksgiving (new calendar churches), two biggest food feast holidays; take your pick. And if you are Irish and Orthodox (and I know you are half and half) do you go out on St. Patrick's and have a tall glass of ale in the middle of Great Lent (you don't have to answer that of course)?
Being an American and being Orthodox is a clash of cultures and civilizations. American Orthodox are trying hard to be both Orthodox and American. The two concepts are incompatible. Something's got to give. And it won't be the culture. Only about 1% of Americans are Orthodox and that includes ethnics and Americans. Do you really believe one can live Orthodoxy in a Protestant-secular world we live in unless he or she is ethnically immunized?
American Orthodoxy will seek that which will feel less "freakish" and in doing so will mutate from Orthodoxy and turn into something unrecognizable. The "Orthodox" Study Bible is only a symptom of that trend.
“Do you really believe one can live Orthodoxy in a Protestant-secular world we live in unless he or she is ethnically immunized?”
Some years ago I’d have said no. But after years in a parish with convert families, I’ve seen people begin to “walk Orthodox”. She Who Must Be Obeyed” and I were out with such a couple just last Saturday evening. It takes years, though, Kosta. My wife says at least 10 years but that’s not bad. It takes 10 years out of law school to even begin to think of one’s self as an attorney. But the kids of the converts...they’re the ones, Kosta. They are just like we were, except they know their faith better than we did.
It is hard to be Orthodox in America, so hard that many ethnic Orthodox here are nominal at best, and their kids are worse. But the convert kids, they’re really something!
As for the ale on +Patrick’s Day, no I didn’t. But had I wanted to I would have. The Latin hierarch who has jurisdiction over the March feast day gave everyone a pass! :)
The Study Bible is another matter altogether. Its the product of the same mentality which lead Greek priests here not so many years ago to dress like Episcopal vicars. Our generation, and even more so the one before it, wanted to be fully American and while that was and is laudable, they never understood that they could be good Americans and faithful, traditional Orthodox too.
Jesus did. He lives today in all God's Children, "walking through the cities of the plague (Dylan)." As Scripture says, "to the pure all things are pure," and the grand truth is that when lepers begged to be touched by Christ and He reached out his hand, embracing them with all His will, the lepers were healed, while He remained immune to their infection. Awesome, Holy God.
From everything that I have read, this is correct. Russian Orthodoxy is different than Serb Orthodoxy which is different from Greek Orthodoxy. My suspicion is that they hold to the fundamentals but they vary in cultural areas.
That would make one wonder why America Orthodoxy would be different from any other type of Orthodoxy? They are simply following cultural trends of the nation. Perhaps I'm missing something.