The Church on the Hill
Slovak immigrants began settling the plains east of Colorado Springs after the railroad reached Calhan in 1888 and homestead land opened. By 1904 they had organized a parish, and in 1905 Archbishop Tikhon, then bishop of the Russian mission in America and later Patriarch of Moscow, consecrated the ground five miles north of town. The first church was finished on the Fourth of July that year and dedicated on August 28, the feast of the Dormition on the old calendar.
The parish weathered the schisms of the 1920s, lost that first building to fire in 1927, and rebuilt by 1932. Fr. Paul Fedec served for thirty-seven years, brought English into the services, and saw the parish onto the Gregorian calendar in 1982. In 1995 the original site was rededicated as a chapel to St. Tikhon, by then glorified as a saint.
Holy Theophany in Colorado Springs traces its own roots back here, through Ss. Constantine and Helen, once a mission of this parish. We serve Calhan, Peyton, Falcon, Ramah, Simla, Kiowa, Limon, eastern Colorado Springs and the Eastern Plains.
Milestones
- 1904 Parish organized by Slovak homesteaders
- 1905 Ground consecrated by Archbishop Tikhon; church completed July 4, dedicated August 28
- 1927 Original church lost to fire
- 1932 Present church completed
- 1956 to 1993 Fr. Paul Fedec’s pastorate; English enters the services
- 1982 Parish adopts the Gregorian calendar
- 1995 Original site rededicated as St. Tikhon’s Chapel