Elagabalus, thank-you for raising this point about the early church.  My hope is that everyone gets the chance at least once to attend an Eastern-rite service in a church with no pews. Pews to my mind turn church into a classroom and congregants into pupils to be restrained and lectured to. In the Orthodox liturgy, when the priest walks among the congregants during specific phases of the liturgy, the effect of belonging is most powerful, and that can only happen in a building with no pews. What your teacher said about the energy of the space was spot on.