In all honesty, let me first state that your question, as worded, is very misleading. It is presented in such a way as to almost condone the fact that being late, in itself, is OK. As Orthodox Christians it is each parishioner’s obligation to make certain that they are in their pews before services begin. This is even alluded to by the fact that the word liturgy actually means the “common work” or “common action” of God’s people. Therefore we must ask ourselves, how can it be a common action if half of those who come are not present when we begin?

Being a realist, however, I understand there are always situations to arise which will make us late for services – most notably, the traffic lights and traffic just around the corner from our parish! Yet, being repeatedly late to services (or worse yet: routinely late) is a sign of great disrespect before God and shows a general lack of humility. In other words, it’s like telling our Lord and Master, “I don’t mind giving you my time, but I’ll show up when I’m darned good and ready, and not before!”

Besides being disrespectful and rude, it is also somewhat presumptuous – perhaps even prideful, to assume that you can just saunter in whenever you feel like it and “join in” with those who are already worshiping; not to mention that this can be very distracting.With all this said, and to answer your initial question, the general rule is that everyone should be in church on time! However, by a means of concession, if you are not already in church prior to the singing of the Trisagion prayer (“Holy God, Holy Mighty, Holy Immortal, have mercy on us!”), you should not dare to approach the chalice that day.