We start liturgy @ 10 sunday mornings and end by 12 if we're lucky, but with memorials it can go into 12.15-12.30 noon. I just love how Catholics have daily mass which last 45 minutes o an hour so you can still pray and get communion throughout the week but don't have to stay for very long. Again I love liturgy but it would be so much more practical if on weekdays, it could just be 45 minutes and you're out.
I guess I'm trying to determine why it takes so long for your priest to complete the Liturgy. This morning, our GOA DL started at 9:30 and was over, including the sermon and a memorial, by 11:15. The Gospel, Lord's Prayer, and Creed were done in both languages, but the vast majority of it (90%) was in English, which in my experience seems to take longer to complete than Greek!
One priest told me that, within the GOA, the Archdiocese once had a directive that a Liturgy of St. John Crysostom should take between 1 hour 5 minutes and 1 hour 15 minutes to complete, including the sermon but not including memorials, artoklasia, etc. Perhaps the priest may have been mistaken regarding the Archdiocesan directive, but he absolutely kept the Liturgies he celebrated to those time guidelines, and in Greek he was able to complete the Liturgy basically in an hour.
Are there many people receiving the Eucharist? If so, what a blessing! Would having more deacons or priests help reduce the time for the Eucharist distribution?
Does your priest repeat a lot of the Liturgy in different languages? Chant slowly?
And, btw---I am not in favor of 'adjusting' our services. They can be completed with alacrity and IMO shortening the service to accommodate the needs of some parishioners to get out of Church more quickly is just a non-starter.
Also, just as there are no new heresies, we should not adjust the language of the Liturgy because the 'Christological controversies are not present nowadays' is not an accurate statement, especially when looking at some of the various sects out there nowadays.
However, possibly new hymns could be developed that may be introduced into Orthros or whatever that may decry things like
The Da Vinci Code as long as this introduction was done properly and not independant of our hierarchs.
I think a better method to educate would be to conduct a class for the adult learners in the evening to debunk this claptrap, and continue to hold these meetings on a regular basis so the adult parishioners can get the information they need from the Church addressing their current issues instead of tinkering with the Liturgy.
It would be cool to see which Church hymns actually debunk the lies put forth in
The Da Vinci Code and use them in your class. That may help to get increased attendance at Vespers/Orthros when people see that these services will help answer their questions....
But, I'm an idealist!