“We quote from the Presbytery of New Orleans: “The Presbyterial force has been materially strengthened by the addition of several consecrated and able young men, who, in the pastorate and in the evangelistic field, have been doing admirable and effective work. Our missions in New Orleans among the Chinese, the seamen and the negroes, are all flourishing.

Converted Chinamen are from time to time returning from this Christian school to their fatherland, and constituting new centres of evangelistic influence in that great pagan country. At a recent communion in the Canal Street Church, under whose care this mission is, eighteen of these saved orientals sat down at the table of the Lord. A number of Syrians, small shop-keepers in New Orleans, expressed through one of their number, although members of the Greek church, a desire to become Protestants.”
http://books.google.com/books?id=fKgRAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA60&dq=New+Orleans+Greek+Church&hl=en&ei=iakRTO2_HMH_nQfH2KSRAw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=3&ved=0CDEQ6AEwAjhQ#

I believe this state of confusion has existed up until today. A Greek-American actress I knew was insistent that the ECUSA and GOA were in full communion with each other – her Episcopal priest had told her so and he was very educated. She had no qualms at all in attending and communing at her ECUSA church on the Upper West Side (where there is also a GOA church) and communing in Orthodox churches when she visited Greece.

One can make innumerable arguments against her contention, of course, but it underlines Fr. Irvine’s contention that “such dialogues seemed to legitimize the Episcopal Church in the eyes of the untrained Orthodox layman.”

There is a practical as well as a dogmatic stance against ‘ecumenism’.