Orthodox Christians believe what Christians have always believed: that God is a communion of love, Father, Son and Holy Spirit; that the Son became a human being, Jesus Christ, who died and rose from the dead; and that through Him we are invited into the very life of God. Everything else on this page grows out of that.
One God in three Persons
We confess the faith of the Nicene Creed every Sunday, in the same words Christians have used since the fourth century. God is one, and God is Father, Son and Holy Spirit. This is not a puzzle to be solved but a truth about who God is: not a solitary power, but love shared eternally between persons, and opened to us.
Jesus Christ, fully God and fully human
The center of everything is Jesus Christ. He is truly God, and He truly became one of us, born of the Virgin Mary, so that the whole of human life, from birth to death, could be joined to God and healed. His death on the Cross and His resurrection on the third day broke the power of death. This is the news the Church exists to announce.
The Church and the Holy Spirit
On Pentecost the Holy Spirit came upon the apostles, and the Church was born. The Orthodox Church understands itself as that same Church, continuous through the centuries in its faith, its sacraments and its bishops. The Spirit is at work in the Church now, in the sacraments, in the saints, and in the ordinary Christian who prays.
Salvation as healing
Orthodox Christians tend to speak of salvation less as a verdict and more as a healing. Sin is a sickness that separates us from God and from one another; Christ is the physician. Through baptism, prayer, the sacraments, repentance and love, we are slowly made whole and, in the words of St. Athanasius, become by grace what Christ is by nature. The Orthodox word for this is theosis: growing into union with God. It is the work of a lifetime and beyond.
Scripture and Tradition
The Bible is the heart of Holy Tradition, and it is read and sung at every service. But the Bible came out of the Church’s life, and it is read within that life: in the Creed, the liturgy, the writings of the Fathers, the decisions of the councils and the lives of the saints. Scripture and Tradition are not two sources but one living stream.
The Mother of God and the saints
Our parish is named for the Dormition, the falling-asleep, of the Virgin Mary, whom we call the Theotokos, the one who gave birth to God. We honor her and all the saints not as substitutes for Christ but as the proof of what His grace can do in a human life. We ask their prayers the way we would ask a friend’s. Icons, candles and feast days keep that great family present to us.
The sacraments
God works through material things: water, bread and wine, oil, the laying on of hands. The Orthodox Church counts seven great sacraments (baptism, chrismation, the Eucharist, confession, marriage, ordination and anointing of the sick) but has never wanted to draw a hard line around where grace stops. The Eucharist, Holy Communion, is the center of our life together, celebrated at every Divine Liturgy.
What Orthodoxy is not
It is not an ethnic club, though our parish was founded by Slovak homesteaders and treasures that heritage. It is not a new denomination or a reaction against anything; it is the old Church, still here. And it is not a set of rules. The fasts, prostrations and long services are tools, offered gently, for people who want to grow.
Come and see. (John 1:46)