The Armenian Church was where I got my start with the OO, but they were not as welcoming to outsiders as the Coptic Church that I joined that was very very friendly. But before then I got my start with a church that had apostolic lines, and liturgy from the Assyrian Church of the East (East Syriac) which why not technically is Oriental Orthodox often gets lumped with them due to many similarities.
Yes I've been trying to get more into the Syriac Poetry end of things (learn more about it) etc. But that is difficult not being good with languages (I have to find good web articles from online journals and other kind of pundits).
My best friend who stayed with the former church loves Narsai (English translations of his writings). I realized that for the most part the East Syrians do not have music that sounds good to western ears. I laughed reading an old entry from "The Mystery Worshiper" where the reviewer went to ACOE in Trichur India which described the congregational chanting sounding like it came from a "congregation of tone deaf worshipers"
The Mystery Worshipper: Cathedral of the Assyrian Church of the East, Trichor, India
I personally enjoy the music of the Assyrian Church of the East, but have only ever heard it sung by Assyrians in Iraq, Iran, Syria and the diaspora (the singing of St. Mary’s Assyrian Church in Moscow is incredibly good) . Likewise I like the music of the Syriac Orthodox, but only when sung by the Suroye people in Turkey, Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Palestine and the diaspora.
There are some independent Syriac-oriented churches which are actually very good; some people dismiss them as Vagante jurisdictionso, but I have found two of them which are excellent. I have never found one related to the Church of thr East however. If you would be comfortable PMing me rgarding your church, I would love more information.
One of the nice things about being a Congregational minister of a church plant is that I have complete autonomy when it comes to liturgical practices (some established Congregational churches have Presbyterian-style “ruling elders”, but others do not, but these parishes can generally fire you if they don’t like how you are conducting the services, hence the “Moses Model” of the Calvary Chapel, which I find hilarious, because Chuck Smith accidentally reinvented Episcopal governance). So we right now are using a service book compiled by an English congregationalist in the 19th century called Devotional Liturgies, based on the Book of Common Prayer, to which we have made some of our own modifications. We also did an experimental Holy Communion service using the Euchologion of Serapion of Thmuis, which is the oldest surviving prayer book in the world, and my congregation likes the idea of using that book for baptisms and the Eucharist due to its brevity.
I am associated however with an ecumenical liturgical project; I am one of six founding members (the others are Lutheran, Methodist, Eastern Orthodox, Syriac Old Catholic, from one of those independent churches I mentioned above, and Assyrian, and the Assyrian, of the participating members, I know personally). The goal is to make available public domain liturgical resources online and provide printed copies, and in some cases new translations (from the Syriac Old Catholic and the Assyrian priest; the former is American but the latter is ethnically Assyrian, whose father is from Iraq and whose mother is an American linguist who speaks the language fluently and teaches it to children at the sunday school in one of the largest Assyrian churches in the US). The Methodist member is an Elder, and the Eastern Orthodox, Old Catholic and Assyrians are priests, whereas the Anglican and the Lutheran are lay scholars. Our Assyrian member is working on translating the previously untranslated Assyrian psalter (specifically, the Farcings, which are like antiphons for any of you familiar with Eastern Orthodox liturgy). One goal of ours is to compress the most important parts of the Assyrian liturgy into one volume. One thing I have noticed is that the Matins, Vespers and Compline services are really very good, and they remind me of Mattins and Evensong from the Book of Common Prayer, so I am considering a radically simplified adaptation of those offices for our Liturgy.