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I would welcome Eastern Catholic and Orthodox thoughts on the following:

1. What does your Church do to welcome and form new communicants who do not share the ethnic traditions of the Mother Church and/or the local Parish?
2. As the cultural mix of your parish, eparchy, and Mother Church changes, how does your Church respond?
3. How does your Church respond, at the parish and eparchial levels, to the impact of local culture (including the practices of Sister Churches, East and West) on the descendants of initial and subsequent waves of immigration?

1. We just are what we are, and lay out our gifts before those who would inquire. You know quite well that in our neck of the woods, the ethnics are now in a distinct minority as compared to the converts and transfers.

2. Put in a confusing way. Please clarify what you mean.

3. A lawyer never asks a question to which he does not already know the answer. I suspect that, as a good lawyer, you already know the answer to this one.

Stu:

1. Sounds a bit fuzzy.
2. The Melkites may not yet have reached the point where those who do not share the cultural heritage of the first immigants to this country are a significant percentage of the communty, but I believe that at least some UCC and BCC parishes are now significantly populated by non-Slavs.
3. This lawyer does not know how all Eastern Catholic (stil less, Eastern Orthodox) Churches respond and would not even hazard a generalization about how all BC and UCC Churches do.

1. Fuzzy is good. I had programmatic approaches. The Byzantine-Orthodox approach has always been, "Come and see". To which one might add, the way to a man's heart is through his stomach. Never underestimate the evangelical potential of ethnic food.

2. Transfiguration is mainly second and third generation ethnics, many intermarried; I would guess fewer than half of all the members are of Middle Eastern descent (even if you count ex-Jews like me). At the rate the babies are coming, pretty soon the Middle Easterners will be the minority. Since there has been very little immigration from the Sub-Carpathian region since World War I, I don't think it's really possible to speak of "ethnic" Ruthenian parishes, any more than it is possible to speak of ethnic Irish parishes. If there was a Rusyn equivalent of green beer, that would be the extent of Rusyn identity for the vast majority of Ruthenians. As for Ukrainians, their problem is the continual waves of immigration, the last of which has not yet ended. So they begin to assimilate, then have to start over, and repeat the cycle at intervals.

3. The policies of most Churches is pretty clear. Bishops make statements at regular intervals. The question is whether people pay attention to them.