I'm Australian
I first came to Church on my nameday (7th of July) in 2007 and was baptised the next year on Holy Saturday.
I'm a bit weird in that I had two parishes and they were two jurisdictions and I stayed that way for about two years until I actually had to stay put since my boyfriend is the neokoros & head acolyte of our parish and has to be there every week. Neither used predominantly English in the service, one Arabic and one Greek. I learned enough Arabic to chant a bit (I got roped into the choir periodically) but used a bilingual book most of the time, and ditto the book in the Greek parish. It was Arabic Sundays (Orthros and DL) and English for fellowship/Bible study (the closest thing I got to formal catechesis - the priest hadn't had converts like us before at this point, he's had quite a few since so he's got more organised with it all now), with mostly Greek for any other services I wanted to go to like feast day liturgies or agrypnia (all night vigils - small compline, vespers, orthros, DL, finishing at about 12:30am). My service books saved my life because I really did need to learn a lot of Greek to be comfortable in the service without them. I used to go to another Greek parish for Vespers sometimes too and that was in English but sadly that priest can't do that anymore. I miss Vespers. When I was baptised it was in three languages (English, Greek and Arabic) and three priests concelebrated, but it was the Greek Archdiocese that my paperwork is in and a Greek parish where I was baptised. The compromise was that I received my first Holy Communion that night at the Arabic church (and then came back to the Greeks for food, shivering in my thin white dress in Australian winter!)
I've been there for almost four years now (I'm permanently at the Greek parish now) and I'm pretty comfortable with the service - I know most of it and don't really take the book unless I'm feeling particularly unwell (I have a few chronic illnesses, and they can mess with my cognitive function). I do get a bit upset at feast day Great Vespers though when the ENTIRE SERVICE is in Greek. Every last word. That happened at one of my favourite parishes last year for their patronal feast and I was very cranky. My Spiritual Father says to have patience because we have to wait out the 'old guard' in the archdiocese who don't believe in English in services, but that it won't be long before there's lots of English and maybe even an English parish or two around. I know it annoys a lot of priests, too, but they have to be obedient (although my (auxillary) bishop bends the rules a bit for them!) to the archbishop in the meantime.
My priest says that the liturgy is 50/50 but it isn't, it's probably 70/30 Greek vs English. We do do the Bible readings, Lord's prayer and Creed in both languages (and I know them in both languages - well, I can mumble the Pistevo, but I know Pater imon!), but the rest is 70/30 especially the litanies.
The Greeks are the biggest Orthodox group here by quite a lot, and I think if it came down to 'we were here first' they'd win. Unfortunately they're also the most stubborn when it comes to English, although I think that's mostly the archbishop and those close to him - the majority of people wouldn't mind more English around from what I can tell. There are English speaking ROCOR parishes around, but since I'm New Calendar it's too jarring to go Church hopping much. Also there's been drama with ROCOR being seen to 'poach' converts for subdeacons and readers recently and I do not want to be involved in all of that (not ROCOR's fault btw - those that went there did so because they wanted to not because ROCOR enticed them somehow).
Australia is a weird place - like the USA it's multicultural, with a WASPy type base. There are quite a few catholics here too to the point where they're quite well known, and most people know that the Greek Orthodox exist, especially in Melbourne and Adelaide where there are large and vocal Greek populations. Things like the Theophany celebrations go on the news, as do the processions at Pascha. Also like the USA it depends where you are as to the culture of the place and the ethnic makeup. We have a lot of middle eastern refugees where I live who have come recently, and the "Greek" population has a LOT of Cypriots, especially in my parish!
Australia is one of those places where your religion is your own business and you more or less keep it to yourself and it always has been. We didn't have the puritan experience of the USA so religion is not a big discussion point and we certainly wouldn't discuss religion with our neighbours unless we knew them very very well.
Christian denominations are tricky - largely the Christians here are evangelicals these days, but this is across denominations - the varying pentecostal ones, nondenoms, anglicans, lutherans (to a lesser extent - they tend to be more conservative), baptists (depends, although most I would class as evangelicals) and of course weirdest of them all, the Uniting Church of Australia (the denomination I grew up in). It's the merger of the presbyterians, congregationalists, wesleyans and methodists, in the late 70s, and it's technically very liberal although most of the parishes I've known have been firmly evangelical and not particularly liberal on moral issues. That's the denomination I grew up in and its a reasonably big one.
I'm not sure what else to tell you. We don't have a convert culture here (and thank goodness for that, if you ask me), but we do have the piety (and lack thereof, thankyou 'I'm Greek so therefore Im Orthodox' people) of the ethnic Orthodox and that's nice. I've settled into cradle piety rather than convert and I quite like it. This piety varies by cultural background and even family by family, but this is what people I know do:
- simple prayer services (often the Trisagion and nothing more) if you're not in Church (morning and evening prayer, etc) but read a chapter of the Gospels every day if you can, and go to Church whenever possible. Say the Jesus prayer during your day as you want or need to, call on the Saints and the Theotokos often. Most Greeks that I know would look at you funny if you asked them about a prayer rule, but they do pray.
- fast as you can - many people don't keep the strict fast (no eggs, dairy or meat) on Wednesdays and Fridays all the way through the year although most are vegetarian on those days at minimum, but keep the fast properly through Lent and keep it very strictly before receiving Holy Communion - a common rule is the strict fast for Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday (and no oil on Saturday/Saturday night) before. At the minimum they usually won't eat meat at all on Saturday before receiving.
- keep the oil lamp lit and stop to pray as you tend it, cense the house on Saturday nights and the eve of feast days and then cense every person in the house (this is the mother of the house's job, take THAT people who say women have no particular role in Orthodoxy!) saying prayers over them
- read the lives of the Saints rather than much theology and the writings of contemporary fathers
- come to Church whenever you can particularly on Sundays, feast days and your nameday
- join the choir or serve in the altar or both (guys), join the philoptochos and decorate the Church, bake the prosfora (communion loaf) and artoklasia (litya bread - we make big loaves) (girls)
I think most of it comes from village piety and it's refreshing - I gave up trying to live up to the convert ideal and settled into this and it's much better in some ways even though it's not as strict in the 'rules' of Orthodox - prayer rules and the normal fasting rules, for instance. But people obey what they're told by their Spiritual Fathers and live holy lives and I think it's wonderful, and they don't burn out like I've seen some converts do
