Something to keep in mind: All churches have nominal members. Some Orthodox are not practicing. They shouldn’t be allowed to commune without confession if they aren’t practicing. It is important to not lump those who do not practice and do not attend Church, partake of the Eucharist, etc with the rest of the Church. A moral apostasy won’t happen due to nominal Orthodox Christians who just consider themselves to be ethnically Orthodox (but are not practicing).
I’m curious as to where you are seeing these situations happen. You say that you don’t see priests addressing it. What scenario is that? Someone who doesn’t attend a parish? Someone who is teaching others to be not follow Orhodox moral teachings? Someone who doesn’t say anything in church, so that the priest isn’t aware of it? As I said earlier, your experience is drastically different than mine - in personal experience, I don’t see the same issues you described.
I don't know, I guess I'm just paranoid that what happened to the Roman Catholic Church will happen in a similar process to the Eastern Orthodox Church, where when in a culture that is different from the culture of the institution, the domestic culture erodes the institutional culture.
I fear that in countries whose base of operations is within the culture and sphere of Western Europe, like the Ecumenical Patriarch (I think the Greeks are in the middle because they have Mount Athos as their foundation, and they preserve the Culture of the Church in greater isolation), the Culture of the Church will be eroded by the domestic culture in one of two ways.
1. Particularly in Diaspora communities, but not just in Diaspora communities and in domestic communities as well, a number of Churches lose all spiritual life and meaning of Sacraments, and only become proxies to meet people of similar skin color and language, slowly multiplies like a virus and reaches the top levels from the bottom, which causes the Church to fall from standing.
2. The Culture of the Church is eroded piecemeal by piecemeal due to the overpowering nature of the domestic culture that isn't their own, and a point is reached where the Church isn't recognized from what it once was.
That's not to mention there are certain people with malicious interests whose goal is to remove any semblance of "orthodox" Christianity (that is, denominations which hold fundamental moral and dogmatic tenants of Orthodox Christianity) from the world. Not to go all Illuminati or Freemason conspiracy theory, which I tend to reject as lacking in sufficient evidence, but certainly when you have people like George Soros who use their billions of dollars to organize fund Liberal causes, such as organizing Antifa counter-protests and FEMEN in Ukraine, these attempts to make the culture of the Western world more Liberal than it already is clearly have a malicious goal which conflicts with the goals of Christ's Holy Church.
Most people seem to think that the Roman Catholic Church was transformed merely by the imperialistic structure of the RCC, where the Pope is the emperor of the empire and has supreme authority over everything. However, while this is absolutely true, it's not as though the Roman Catholic Church follows the Coptic tradition where they cast lots to determine the next Primate. Thus, the question becomes - how could it be possible that someone like Paul VI, with quite wrong opinions (opinions that go beyond the blatant heterodoxy and paganism of Pius IX, and betray some fundamental tenets of "orthodox" Christianity), could be elected to that position with full support of the Cardinals?
And this process where the anti-orthodox culture slowly erodes what "orthodoxy" they had, such that we see the end result, terrifies me for the Orthodox Church, particularly in light of prophecies where "heretics will seize power in the Church," or prophecies which state "there will come a time where you can't go to Church to receive Communion."
I see this similar process possibly occurring in the Orthodox Church thus.
This primarily happens when the Jurisdiction has a foundation in Western Europe. It is easier to fight back when you have some direct connection to an Eastern European country that is or is allied with Russia, or your foundation is something like Mount Athos where their culture is more isolated than Greek culture, because if the culture of Western Europe tries to consume the Orthodoxy of that Orthodox Church, the hierarchy or source of those countries can intervene and tell the Bishops and the Priests to get their act together, if not then threaten excommunication. However, when you have a situation where your base of operations is located in Western Europe or it's satellite cultures, such as the Ecumenical Patriarch, I feel that there is no certain safety of these Churches from the culture of Western Europe.
If indifferentism and the valuing of domestic culture over Church Culture, viewing the Church as nothing more than a proxy to find people with the same skin tone and voice, is not what causes the erosion of Orthodoxy in these Churches little by little, it will be the erosion of the culture of the Church piecemeal by piecemeal, where gradually at once the whole Church will succumb to it.
How many of you think that monarchy is even comparable to democracy? How many of you think about having more than 2 kids? How many of you think about the validity of the Separation of Church and State? How many believe that Monasticism is a path you would even consider pursuing?
These ideas of which you hold are a product of not your religious upbringing, but the domestic culture in which you live. Soon enough, you will think it's lunacy to think that a government should outlaw same-sex marriage, to outlaw abortions, to not go to war in the name of "individual rights," etc. And this is because these opinions are formed by your own culture, not the Church's Culture.
Persecution here is not as violent and outright as in the Roman Empire, the Middle East, or in the Soviet Union where you can preserve your culture's values and opinions within the Catacombs of that culture - but here, because we have the freedom to practice our religion, surely the culture will be more virulent in trying to dismantle what is contradictory to the domestic culture.
Thus, the domestic culture will more easily penetrate Churches where the Holy Spirit is absent, or penetrate Churches slowly but surely as the domestic culture slowly but surely modifies the mindset and thinking of subsequent hierarchies.
The only way to fight this erosion is to keep on fighting and try to correct heterodox opinions as much as possible, and while this does generally happen, I feel that in many cases it doesn't, due to peer pressure - it's something I fail at often as well.
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