Struggling to Understand my Impression of a Parish

[truefiction1]

I visited a small Orthodox parish (OCA) in Southeastern PA for Liturgy this morning on account of some training I occasionally have to attend to in that area, and this is the second time that I was there for Liturgy since October of last year, and I was left with a feeling that the parish has somehow managed to build a strange sort of cocoon around itself, in an unsettling way being closed in upon itself and isolated, as if it's functioning as a mere local club of sorts, with no design or purpose beyond that. I don't know why I'm getting that impression. Perhaps it's because I'm a cleric that the lay people react to my presence in such a way as to lead me to having this impression of them. It's a curious thing to me. Maybe they'd interact with me differently if I wasn't wearing that riassa (outer cassock) that Fr. Matthew (ArmyMatt) gave me from Elijah's Mantle? I don't know. I get strange vibes about the people there. But maybe the problem is with me and my expectations? Just musing about the thing.

 

[rusmeister]

My limited experience tells me that each parish has its own culture. It’s really hard to say. For the first 10 years that I was orthodox, I lived under the present impression that my parish was one big, mostly happy family, and that the people worshiping next to me shared my beliefs. I was gradually disillusioned of that, watching first divorce, then liberal approval by some of sexual anarchy, and finally conservatism allied with Stalinism in response, tear that parish apart. I knew about the other local parishes, they had occasional interactions with us. I had known of issues in the parish in America which I indirectly attended for two years as a nonbeliever, but I was mostly looking at them from the outside.
But could people treat church merely as a social club? Of course.

 

[ArmyMatt]

I visited a small Orthodox parish (OCA) in Southeastern PA for Liturgy this morning on account of some training I occasionally have to attend to in that area, and this is the second time that I was there for Liturgy since October of last year, and I was left with a feeling that the parish has somehow managed to build a strange sort of cocoon around itself, in an unsettling way being closed in upon itself and isolated, as if it's functioning as a mere local club of sorts, with no design or purpose beyond that. I don't know why I'm getting that impression. Perhaps it's because I'm a cleric that the lay people react to my presence in such a way as to lead me to having this impression of them. It's a curious thing to me. Maybe they'd interact with me differently if I wasn't wearing that riassa (outer cassock) that Fr. Matthew (ArmyMatt) gave me from Elijah's Mantle? I don't know. I get strange vibes about the people there. But maybe the problem is with me and my expectations? Just musing about the thing.

back when I temporarily acted as Vladyka Mark’s subdeacon, I got that vibe from a few parishes in that area of PA.

 

[PsaltiChrysostom]

When I was a seminarian, I visited a Greek church in the Boston area. When I told a classmate, he chuckled and asked me how it was. I said that it was the most unfriendly church I'd ever been to. He said, YUP! Unless you are Greek, you won't be welcome there.

 

[E.C.]

Pennsylvania is the state equivalent of someone who's life peaked in high school with Pittsburgh as the city equivalent. The parishes have some nice people, but yeah, there's a certain parochialism there. I think parochialism may be worst in Pennsylvania then any other state in the union and it is NOT limited to OCA PA parishes, it's all of them up there.

 

[truefiction1]

Pennsylvania is the state equivalent of someone who's life peaked in high school with Pittsburgh as the city equivalent. The parishes have some nice people, but yeah, there's a certain parochialism there. I think parochialism may be worst in Pennsylvania then any other state in the union and it is NOT limited to OCA PA parishes, it's all of them up there.

Parochialism, I think, sort of describes the essence of it I guess. I grew up in a PA parish, but it was way up in the Northwest tip and not far from Ohio and I don't think the social environment was the same as this one. In this one there was a general lack of interest towards me as a visitor, and only the priest made sure to take the time to greet me, and nobody else at all gave a darn, one way or another, that someone from out of town was there or what brought me there. There was no enthusiasm, no curiosity, nothing. Only indifference, at least towards me. I did notice decent things about them.