I believe there is a Serbian Orthodox church.

That's a lot of Orthodox churches.

I have a huge gap in my knowledge base where "churches, Orthodox" should be.

I grew up Episcopalian, which was the most boring white bread denomination ever until recently, when the church ordained a gay Bishop and a bunch of parishes seceded. Now, according to my mom, churches are divided into two categories,--"Good" churches (ones who accept gay marriage and clergy) and "those others we don't like anymore." When we drive by an Episcopal chuch, she tries to figure out from the signage whether they are good or not.

Armenian Orthodox and Ethiopian Orthodox, too. And all the Orthodox churches are, theoretically, the same big church. I have an Armenian O. friend who recently moved to Santa Cruz and found herself in a really uncomfortable, ingrown little parish, so she's looking at nearby Greek and Russian and Serbian churches, hoping to find someplace that doesn't give her hives.

Ha Robin! My mom does the exact same thing... so funny!

One of the main reasons I love buffistas is conversations like this one. I keep reading and think "but what about..." and then someone else posts that. (Short story, I have nothing to add, but I am pleased to be here.)

Aw, Robin, if I didn't already think your mom was aces just because she brought you into the world, I'd have to now for sure.

If we ever moved away from the Bay Area and my current lefty crunchy parish, I might just end up in one of those good Episcopal churches.

Ok. Shutting down my computer and really going home. I meant to be on campus for about 30 minutes today. Instead I've been here for, oh, 5 1/2 hours. Oops. Well, at least I've gotten work done. And eaten. And played.

Going home. Really.

What always gets me is when you see a convocation of bishops and there are some that look all funky and it turns out they're some weird sect of Catholics?

In my religious background world (and I'm not saying this is right or wrong), Christian and Catholic are different--Christian means "born again" or "saved" or whatever, and Catholic is separate from that. Just like Lutheran would be separate, as well.

Um....wait, why are Lutherans not? They're Protestant! WTF? Are Prebyterians? Methodists? Baptists? How do you decide what counts?

After the funeral I went to last week, I was thinking of hitting up some gay Catholic mass in Seattle, but found out their Dignity chapter just has "prayer service" once a month. Not mass. Boo! Apparently the Catholic churches in Seattle are pretty darn gay-accepting, but...that wasn't my point!

I just read a really interesting article about an apparent flood of ex-evangelicals to the Antiochian Orthodox Church.