I tend not to look toward the culture of a Church or where it is located since I tend to focus more on the Lord which helps me to think better about the Church no matter where it is. I find out that I am in a very small minority since most people tend to guided by culture even the culture of their Church. I do agree with you that the simpler the faith the better the message. Perhaps we are trying too much to teach everything when in truth the primacy of love needs to be stressed. Too many of our youth are not connecting to the Gospel and the Church simply because we are not connecting properly to them. I find though since this post is dealing with Kirill I of Moscow that there is a great surge of interest among the Russian youth into the Church. It is to my understanding of living in both Churches that the Eastern Divine Liturgies are more geared to experiencing God much earlier in your life than what the Catholic Mass does. The Catholic Mass tends to be more understood when one comes of age. Since the Communist experiment has been a failure in Russia the experience of God in Russia seems to find its place eecially among the youth. I do not know if this faith has been easier for them but the Orthodox Church tends to be a more simplified Church than the Church of Rome so that the Orthodox experience of God will be able to reach to them much sooner.
I agree with some of what you say, but not all. I don’t think we should ignore culture, because we’re profoundly shaped by it, and there is no harm in the Church speaking to people in their own cultural language.
When it comes to the trappings, the “smells and bells”, it’s easy for children to become enthralled. I was. For teens, the message is everything, which is why sometimes teens are vulnerable to Evangelical messages. Being Catholic as I am, and having lived among Evangelicals as I have, I will say the simplicity is like frosting on a cake…simple, attractive, but little in the way of nourishment. A lot of young adults, though, turn away from Evangelical and Fundamentalist sects. Most of the converts in my parish (and there are a lot) are young adults from Evangelical or Fundamentalist backgrounds.
But there’s more, in my opinion. I don’t want to make too much of culture, but it matters, and much more than we often think it does. Why do our courts follow precedent? Well, because the Anglo-Saxons did. Why do we have an elected congress? Well, because the Nordic tribes elected representatives to the “Althing”, their governing body. Why are nearly all of our public buildings Greek or Roman in design? Because it’s imprinted on us in other ways and we aspire to be people of order and the law just as the Romans were. Why are our streets gridded in squares? Because the Romans, uniquely, did that in their cities. And why do we have the “filioque”? Because the Franks did. Why can Kipling’s “Harp Song of the Dane Women” not be translated into Spanish? (and it can’t) Because it has a Scandinavian poetical mode to it that is alien to Romance languages but which is a bit odd but not incomprehensible to an English-speaker. Why do western men shave? Because the Romans did. Why do we wear trousers? Because the Franks did. Why do travelers abroad sometimes get the feeling that they have suddenly come upon a “perfect place” later to find that their ancestors came from thereabouts? Because the place and everything in it has cultural reverberations that our own parents exposed us to without them or us knowing it. Why are we so careful to have smooth, very green lawns even in the semi-deserts of California? Because grass grows lush in England and if you put sheep on it, that’s what you’ll get.
In my part of the country, most people are of Scots-Irish ancestry. Fairly early on after the Reformation, they turned away from the Anglican Church to which they were forced, initially to convert, and adopted a fundamentalist Presbyterianism of a very basic, direct, and simple sort. I remember some years back, my area was visited by, of all people, Ian Paisley. He actually preached in some of the Fundamentalist churches here. Curious, I went to see one of them. It was astonishing! Their reaction to him and he to them was as natural as if they had left Ulster yesterday…and yet 300 years separated them from him.
Why? Well, because culturally-originated things last a lot longer than we think they do.
And why would the Scots-Irish Fundamentalists, as young adults, be attracted to Catholicism? Because even before Henry VIII, and before Presbyterianism and before Ian Paisley, Catholicism in the border lands between England and Scotland (where the Scots-Irish originally came from) was basic, simple, direct, taught by rough monks in rough conditions, yet stretching back through the Church Fathers to Jesus Himself.
If you ask one of those converts why he/she joined the Church (and I have) the answers almost never vary. “The Mass makes (orderly) sense and the Eucharist gets me close to Jesus, which is what I always wanted.” Simple, direct, orderly and plain, but historically and theologically profound. Straight to the goal. Perhaps as a concession to culture, the convert daughter of a Baptist preacher often plays the hammer dulcimer at Communion. Walking up to Communion while she plays, e.g. “Just as I am” has brought a tear to my eye at times. It’s as close to heaven as I expect to get “this side of Jordan”.
Personally, I think Flannery O’Connor was right. Someday in this country, we’ll see the South Catholic. Maybe I won’t see it in my lifetime, but it will happen. (Catholic parishes in Atlanta, I’m told, are HUGE) And cultural intersection will have a great deal to do with it. (And yes, I have a great deal of fondness for my Scots-Irish neighbors.)
Its not exclusive to the EO. Really all there is to it.