American Missions, or the Lack there of

[Markie Boy]

I can say this - I have never been in an Orthodox parish because there isn't one close by. I'm sort of stuck between the Catholic church I am in now and the Baptist church I used to attend.

I have learned and understood more by listening to AFR than I have from either church. And in understanding and making sense of things, it's literally brought me more peace.

So I'll give thanks for that. I just wish Orthodoxy was a little more available.

 

[AMM]

How close is your nearest Orthodox parish?

 

[Jude1:3Contendforthefaith]

I can say this - I have never been in an Orthodox parish because there isn't one close by. I'm sort of stuck between the Catholic church I am in now and the Baptist church I used to attend.

I have learned and understood more by listening to AFR than I have from either church. And in understanding and making sense of things, it's literally brought me more peace.

So I'll give thanks for that. I just wish Orthodoxy was a little more available.

I get it Bro.

I grew up in a small town in the southwest before the internet and there were no Eastern Orthodox Churches close to me. I didn't even know what Eastern Orthodoxy was until researching Church History and apologetics years later.

I went to the Baptist Church growing up and the churches available in our small town were a Baptist Church, Roman Catholic Church, Methodist Church and a Mormon Church.


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[dzheremi]

I had to move almost 1,200 miles away from my home area to attend a Coptic Orthodox Church for the first time. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ (The nearest EO church was 15 miles away. With respect, I don't think EO have it nearly as bad in America as many think they do.)

Not saying everyone can/should do that or that I'm some kind of hero for having done that (honestly all I did was make sure that there would be one wherever I lived when picking which grad schools to apply to; Google deserves the credit ), but I believe you can make it work. I'm sure if you called/emailed your nearest EO parish (even if it is far away), they would be able to help you in some way. When I emailed the parish that would become my home parish while I was in Albuquerque, they responded that one of the deacons of the congregation happened to live down the street from me, so I could ride over with him. I never would have known that if I hadn't emailed the contact I found online.

 

[TheLostCoin]

I had to move almost 1,200 miles away from my home area to attend a Coptic Orthodox Church for the first time. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ (The nearest EO church was 15 miles away. With respect, I don't think EO have it nearly as bad in America as many think they do.)

In terms of jurisdictions and the Bishops exercising control over their parishes? Yeah, absolutely not. I feel bad for the Coptic and Syriac Churches specifically; they are both having a miserable time in terms of finances and heterodoxy. Doesn't the Coptic Church have like only two Bishops over all of North America? And the one Coptic liturgy I visited had Evangelical Protestant Pop-Music for Pre-Communion hymns, right in the middle of Liturgy.

Not sure how the Armenian Church specifically is doing. Having gone to a Coptic Church, Slavonic Liturgies, and the Latin Mass, for some reason the Armenian Church which I visited, despite it (the Armenian Church generally) being the strictest of the Oriental Churches when it comes to only permitting liturgical language, had the most user-friendly service books that I had ever seen for non-Armenian speakers. And that's saying something, because Armenian is such a difficult language to learn, let alone Classical Armenian. It's a bit embarrassing that the Latin Mass folks and even the Slavonic folks cannot produce as user-friendly texts.

They had Latinized text, it was incredibly linear, and they bolded which sections were audible in the liturgy while having unbolded silent portions.

It was also uncanny how textually similar it was to the Liturgy of Saint John Chrysostom.

 

[dzheremi]

In terms of jurisdictions and the Bishops exercising control over their parishes? Yeah, absolutely not. I feel bad for the Coptic and Syriac Churches specifically; they are both having a miserable time in terms of finances and heterodoxy.

Agreed, sadly. The Copts in Canada just got their own bishop a little while ago, and there's still a huge swath of the earth that is somehow supposed to be under the aegis of HH Pope Tawadros II, despite his attention rightly being mostly focused on the situation in Egypt proper, since that's where he actually lives. If anyone cared to ask to me or a great many other Coptic Orthodox people, they'd probably hear that we need fewer 'general bishops' (an innovation in the Coptic tradition, from what I understand not predating HH Pope Kyrillos VI), and more actual (diocesan) bishops. I don't know why this has evolved the way it has, but it is a problem and is largely responsible for the messes we currently see in DC and other areas of the United States. It's really sad.

Not sure how the Armenian Church specifically is doing. Having gone to a Coptic Church, Slavonic Liturgies, and the Latin Mass, for some reason the Armenian Church which I visited, despite it (the Armenian Church generally) being the strictest of the Oriental Churches when it comes to using Classical Armenian as their only permitted liturgical language, had the most user-friendly service books that I had ever seen for non-Armenian speakers. And that's saying something, because Armenian is such a difficult language to learn, let alone Classical Armenian. It's a bit embarrassing that the Latin Mass folks and even the Slavonic folks cannot produce as user-friendly texts.

They had Latinized text, it was incredibly linear, and they bolded which sections were audible in the liturgy while having unbolded silent portions.

That's very cool! I didn't know that, as I've never been to an Armenian Church. I know they're big on using Armenian, but I didn't know about their service books. That's great.

 

[E.C.]

I had to move almost 1,200 miles away from my home area to attend a Coptic Orthodox Church for the first time. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ (The nearest EO church was 15 miles away. With respect, I don't think EO have it nearly as bad in America as many think they do.)

Not saying everyone can/should do that or that I'm some kind of hero for having done that (honestly all I did was make sure that there would be one wherever I lived when picking which grad schools to apply to; Google deserves the credit ), but I believe you can make it work. I'm sure if you called/emailed your nearest EO parish (even if it is far away), they would be able to help you in some way. When I emailed the parish that would become my home parish while I was in Albuquerque, they responded that one of the deacons of the congregation happened to live down the street from me, so I could ride over with him. I never would have known that if I hadn't emailed the contact I found online.

I definitely agree with the first part. The allowance for Copts and other OO to receive Communion at an EO church if an OO one isn't nearby must be a huge blessing for many. Anytime we EO think we have it bad, we really need to look at our OO and Eastern Catholic relatives; especially in North America.


As for the second part, when I was looking for colleges abroad that I could attend, one of the biggest factors was where the nearest EO parish was. There's a lot more than we really give ourselves credit for. Emailing the parish is always a good idea. I was visiting my mom's family for Christmas one year and needed a ride to Liturgy, so I emailed the priest. Turns out they lived a few blocks from my mom's house