A response to Em.
Culture is the manifestation of religion.
Historically, Orthodoxy, in whatever culture she has been incarnated, has become the new substance, displacing the old, which the cultural forms reveal. Today she is everywhere challenged by the religion of secularism. For example, East and West Christian Rome, whatever their cultural differences, shared the same Orthodox Faith. Thus, the Easterner, St Justin Martyr, founded a catechetical school in Rome. Disciple of St Polycarp of Smyrna, St Irenaeus, became bishop of Lyons in Gaul.