Posted by Al
on 11/16/2008, 9:55 am, in reply to "More on "Immigrant Ministry""
Leo-
I've wrestled with this longer and harder than I care to think. Photini posted two links that give an insight to what is occurring in our parishes. One, in harmony with the Sermon of the Last Judgement, welcomes "strangers", one does not. It is not just along ethnic lines. I have been a "stranger" at parishes of the latter variety that were virtually all converts.
In my more cynical thought, I see "Immigrant parishes" as a handy excuse for the "natives" to ignore the immigrants, and for the immigrants to ignore the natives. Heaven forbid we should find a way to all gather as a Christian community.
If a community were all of one ethnic heritage, and had a community parish, perhaps there would be a rationale for maintaining an "old country" flavor. But, in today's America, most newly arrived Orthodox blend into the secular community at large, and are only ghetto dwellers in church. The "natives" don't what them because they will "change things", and the immigrants don't want to go to the existing parish because "they don't do it right".
I tend to think that this is a result of two "brands" of Orthodoxy. Those who wish to live and spread the faith, and those who simply wish to "maintain" the trappings of the faith. While many earlier immigrants learned to be ghetto dwellers as a traditional part of the American experience for new ethnic arrivals, it is not so much the case today.
It surely isn't normal Orthodoxy, as we have been made very welcome in the parishes of the two villages where we lived here. In fact, we have been fawned over. And, non-Orthodox visitors receive a warm welcome and "VIP seating" at coffee in both parishes.
Go figure!
Al
Paros Island, Greece
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