Someone this week asked me if I thought east and west would ever be united as we were for the first 1000 years of Christianity. I said I cannot see how that will happen as long as the east is not united with the east!
One of the happy, and sad moments for me during the Resurrection service on Saturday night was when we went outside to proclaim the Gospel and the bells from the Albanian Orthodox Church across the way were ringing. This church it literally across the street from us, there are some houses in between us so you cannot see the church, but I was thinking how sad this was that the 50 or so people at my church were separate from the 50 or so people at St. Nick’s! And there is another Orthodox Church in town as well. They by the way were celebrating Greek Easter!
Many Greeks are simply unaware that there are Orthodox who aren’t Greek. Two friends of mine, one Greek and one Antiochian (well, actually Romanian, but attending an Antiochian parish), were getting engaged, and the Greek girl’s mom was very hesitant about giving her blessing, because she honestly had to be convinced that Antiochians were the same religion she was. I think it’s mainly ignorance.