[Kolokotronis]

I must say this idea that the Church should foster ethnicity is pernicious to me. And heaven knows the GOA does it in spades. To my way of thinking, the inculcation of Greekness or Russianness or whateverness, in a place like America, is the business of parents, not the Church. Obviously the Churches will carry on our respective ethnic ethoses to some extent and that's important if only so the converts can develop an Orthodox phronema and everyone can remember the people who brought The Faith to America and struggled to build our Church in a hostile culture, but beyond that, NO!

Counting my boys, 5 generations of my maternal family have lived in America...and my boys both speak and understand Greek and are quite at home in our village. In many ways they are far more "Greek" than some of the GOA Greek chauvinists who continually spout off about Greece but have never been there and don't even know the name of the village their parents were from! But when it comes to spending money for "Greek Letters" or Greek TV in America, they are the first ones to say the Archdiocese should pay for this stuff. Its just awful! I am sorry to see +Alexei pushing this, but I suppose I am jo more surprised to see it from him than I am from my own hierarchs.

[kawaii]

I must say this idea that the Church should foster ethnicity is pernicious to me.

Forstering is a bit much yeah. I think these folks should have a place those. (Noting that I'm not ethnically Russian but rather like the Slavonic liturgy.)

[kawaii]

Counting my boys, 5 generations of my maternal family have lived in America...and my boys both speak and understand Greek and are quite at home in our village. In many ways they are far more "Greek" than some of the GOA Greek chauvinists who continually spout off about Greece but have never been there and don't even know the name of the village their parents were from! But when it comes to spending money for "Greek Letters" or Greek TV in America, they are the first ones to say the Archdiocese should pay for this stuff. Its just awful! I am sorry to see +Alexei pushing this, but I suppose I am jo more surprised to see it from him than I am from my own hierarchs.

In fairness I haven't found an article with Alexy II mentioning it only Kirill (though I find it unlikely they disagree). Personally I think there's demand for both all slavonic churches, half and half churches, and all english churches, and that need should be met rather than creating barriers to folks. It seems most folks fixate on one or the other and become hostile toward the other; at least OCA folks...