I was wondering if there is a Handbook for the Catechumen I could look for? Something that had information on why and how on venerating icons, entering the church, addressing clergy, etc. Just a big book of info. An Orthodoxy for Dummies, if you will. I've found a lot of information on the internet but I wouldn't mind a hard copy. Something I can mark, highlight and grab for quick reference.
The ideal, IMHO, would be that there would be someone to show you all that kind of practical stuff - a greeter, for example, could introduce you to someone who knew what they were doing. That's something that helped me greatly when I first started coming to church.
Short of that, what I did in my first year of going to church was just figure out what everyone else (i.e. 2/3rds of the parish - it's a big parish!) was doing, and figure that if that many people were doing it, it must be right enough.
The fun part was realising a couple of years later that in fact no one knew what they were doing
since then, I've sometimes noticed (in parishes that have pews) that people sit down only after a bunch of people at the front decide to sit down first, which starts a kind of anti-wave
