Hi Chris. Thru recieving some letters about the UK environment which she lives in, from my half-sister (who is Anglican-Rite Catholic) I clearly see your point. Also, as a sales and marketing person in the "secular world" I understand your need for successful contact points with the public. Muslim presence is not helpful right now in the UK througout all this, I am sure. Yet the populace has not successfully formed a Christian mindset as the Orthodox have -- relying on Eastern Chrisian History-- to have an answer back to Islam that is truly Christian, and truly solid. In summation, perhaps no one feels the old-fashioned compunction to "be saved" as in Protestant sects, and so, the situation is truly bewildering, is it not? Now for how to give Orthodoxy greater exposure. The problem with clerical garb in processions -- I understand. So before we revisit it, a thought comes to mind. Here in America, Protestants are fond of making calendars with nature photos and a quote from the Old Testament Psalms to go along with it. there is plenty of natural beauty in the UK. Why not investigate these same quotes along with a small icon of King David or one of the OT righteous in the corner of the photo of "nature" paired with the Psalm? This is akin to re-teaching the Bible to those who are ignorant. Childrens' picture-stories, if you will. If not executed by an iconographer -- lets say, even elevated to the level of "cartoonish" but the point is, to give the public a kind of beauty to grasp that will stay with them until they investigate the deeper, soul-saving graces of Orthodox Christianity. I know it is hard, in the face of evils and Wiccans and New Age and right wing and left wing Christian offshoots that we are not even in communion with, but as the centuries have proved, beauty is so much akin to God's Love that these simple methods of conveying "love" rather than "conversion" is what will stay with a person over the course of time when they are exposed to it.
