EvanISOT wrote:

So this is my sticky wicket: If my assumptions about Orthodox teaching are correct, that it is possible by God's mercy that some souls outside the Church on earth, will be found in the Church in heaven, and vice versa....then I can't help but think that the very final, deciding factor in a man's redemption, is his individual status before our Lord, and not his being in the community that is the Church.

  I do not know about your assumptions, but your unstated premise may not be of the orthodox  understanding.  What exactly do you see as  redemption?  To orthodox, redemption is being healed.   
   
  See this link: Man's Fall and Redemption
   
  One aspect of the saving and redeeming action of Christ, therefore, is the destruction of death by Christ's own death. It is the transformation of death itself into an act of life. It is the recreation of Sheol ( the spiritual condition of being dead)  into the paradise of God. Thus, in and through the death of Jesus Christ, death is made to die. In Him, who is the resurrection and the life, man cannot die, but lives forever with God. 
   
  So in our deaths, we will forever live in community with God and His people. But here is where the problem is, and there are many other ways to state it. After we die, we my not be able to change, who knows. So if we don’t like community, if we don’t like living as one, as the three that are God are as one, we may have to live forever in a way that we do not like to live.   The Church, the body of Christ, can help us here. We can change with the help of the church. Christ said that we need to love God and that we need to love others. The community of the Church, can help with both.  It has ways for us to die to our self and live in Christ, right here and now. A taste of the heavenly kingdom in this life is the was to joy in the next.   I believe this is best done in the community that is the Church.
 
Andy

Are all Orthodox Churches like this, or have I made an error in my thinking along the way?

  No, fortunately not all parishes are like that.  In my experience, every parish is different in their ethnic and political leanings.  Orthodoxy came to North America in many  ways, but one major way was through immigration of folks from orthodox lands.  They brought whole a culture with them and the Church was just part of it. (This is not limited to Russians).
   If there is more than one Orthodox Church in your area, try to visit others. It is not just you, many people are bothered by it, even those born into the faith and of the same ethnic group. I do not think this to be a trivial issue. Lots of parishes try hard to attract Orthodox Christians from all ethnic groups, converts, and catechumens, an to be the witness of Orthodox Christianity in America.  Lots of parishes are American.  But  America is still young in comparison to the “old country”, and it will take time.  I belong to an OCA parish, and in the service we pray for this country, its president, and its civil authority.  I just assumed that all parishes do.     
   
   

I appreciate what the article said about the Good Samaritan story as the story of our redemption...though I must say, I think a presupposition about the Church being the ark of salvation helps one to appreciate it more, something I don't have right now.

    To Orthodox Christians, the Church itself is a item of faith. I think that western though sees a Church militant and a Church triumphant, Orthodoxy sees it more as One. We journey to where those two meet.  In our buildings, the mystical is with the physical. We are joining with the saints to worship our God, we are joining the Cherubim and the Seraphim in chanting the thrice-holy hymn to the life-giving Trinity. We believe that we are taking part in the same worship, not just worshiping the same way.
   
  And for the Church being the ark of salvation, that is living a life in Christ with others that are in Christ, the Church teaches that salvation is being in God’s divine presence.  In its faith in resurrection and eternal life, the Orthodox Church looks not to some "other world" for salvation, but to this very world so loved by God, resurrected and glorified by Him, done with His own divine presence.  So the Church teaches that it is the way, the way that man can truly become himself, to be in the image and likeness of God.
 
Andy