It's quite near the Greek Orthodox church (the big round one) where they have several festivals a year. About half that congregation doesn't have Greek surnames! Everybody's gotta' have a home eh!
I am Scots-Irish and German, so I understand the challenges a convert might have in a strongly-ethnic parish. Of course, there’s the OCA and the Antiochians that have a lot of converts and use all or mostly English.
As far as Slavonic goes, I do understand most of it and I assume the priests who use it do too. I converted into the Carpatho-Russian church, which used mostly English and some Slavonic. Then I spent a few years in the Russian Church in Exile, which used only Slavonic and, since I already knew the Liturgy in English, I did kind of a backward translation. I know some Russians ans Serbs who say they do not understand parts of the Liturgy, but I think they could if they tried, given what seems to me to be strong similarities in the languages. The Gospel and the sermons will be in the modern language of the people, or in English.
Politics doesn’t come up much, unless it has something to do with the old country. The NATO war against Serbia got a lot of coverage in Serbian churches. I think most priests see their job as helping us work out our salvation, not telling us how to vote.