If a displaced ethnic group simply was a church, if an ethnos was headed by its bishops, and was simply a community defined by their ecclesial membership and the cultural inheritance that grew up around the response to Jesus Christ in their former location, it might look like this, and that would not be dissolved into a "private" thing. That would be the church as public, even if displaced, rather than the church as one of several component institutions enabling a privately-held and amorphous ethnic identity, which carries with it few or no political, ethical or spiritual consequences.
It's the "displaced" part, of course, that's the problem.
There are lots of Armenians living near where I live - they have two Armenian Apostolic churches, one Armenian Congregationalist church, and one Armenian Catholic church in the area, all within not more than 10 miles of each other, and perhaps less. Most of them that I have spoken with do not care about their faith, and do not care about the faiths of their fellow Armenians, as long as they're loyal to the preservation of the ethnos, and as long as they're not Muslim. I can see their disengagement from the culture at large, while at the same time they absorb some of its ugliest elements (clip-art tombstones, tawdry domestic styles that are discontinuous with what they left behind and seem to echo styles of 50 or more years ago, heightened promiscuity - especially among the very young - coupled with stricter moral standards than mainstream secular Americans would get, dishonorable practices among the many small businesses exemplifying a small-souled greed that profit them little yet cause their image to suffer so greatly, etc.). The children are being absorbed by the larger culture, and it seems that it is the event of the Turkish genocide that is the largest active glue keeping their community together with any sense of themselves as a group, rather than, say, the incarnation. The churches are merely among several institutions to service this ethnos. The result is that the churches are hemorrhaging members, the people have mostly a vague (even if loud) civic religious piety directed to "God," and that most only attend for baptisms, weddings and funerals, as they are innocent of catechesis. Sound like a familiar situation? The mainliners went this route, also, unto their present teetering on oblivion. Until we can successfully resist the corrosive effects of how American society treats "religion," this will continue.I do not think I have a solution for our ethnic-ecclesial confusion (confusing for some, not all). The best way forward seems to be to look carefully at the eucharistic canons, to persevere in fasting prayer and almsgiving, to be generous in opportunities for instruction and "community," and by regarding our fellow communicants as truly fellow citizens of the Jerusalem, with all the consequent economic and political networks that should follow from that. The task of my repentance provides me with enough work, though, that I cannot afford to bother much about this, except by occasionally blogging.
