Diaspora semi-Christianity

[anglomedved]

Every week I open the door to 20 or so people who come for icon-painting lessons at our house. I make the usual small-talk as see them in and take their coats. Occasionally we talk longer.

In nearly every case the communication mode is ‘Christian-to-Christian’. That is: we recognize each other, without words, as people who have serious, adult Christian commitments, and personal prayer lives. With this comes a very clear unwritten code of attitude and behaviour towards one another and a great easiness and simplicity of communication (including the familiar ‘tu’ (you) widespread in Christian circles here).

How I wish I could always be in the same communication mode when I go to church. Yes, there are church members, lay and clergy, in our diocese, where I sense this total commitment, and this being at ease. It is a joy to be with these people. But it is a far from universal experience, on both sides of the iconostasis. Certainly the great majority of Christian friends with whom I am in this communication mode are outside my own diocese, and indeed the majority are not Orthodox at all. Is this just me? I ask. Or is this typical or of diaspora Russian Christianity, of Russian Orthodoxy in particular or Orthodoxy in general? I don’t know.