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St. Nicholas Orthodox Christian Church Fargo, North Dakota Christ is in our midst! |
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About Our Parish
In
1988, the Antiochian Orthodox Archdiocese of North America (www.antiochian.org) began supporting a
small group of Orthodox in Fargo, who wished to have services, and formed a mission
in Fargo, North Dakota. Since that
time, the Antiochian Archdiocese, which is a direct spiritual descendent of the
Church in Antioch, where the followers of Christ were first called Christians
(Acts 11:26), has supported the mission of the Orthodox believers in Fargo both
financially and through supplying clergy on short-term temporary bases for the
purpose of offering services and education in the Orthodox faith.
The
original name of the mission was All Saints Orthodox Christian Mission, sometimes
referred to as All Saints Orthodox Church.
In 2004, a local family incorporated itself under the name of All Saints
Orthodox Church and purchased a building in which the Antiochian mission could
hold services and classes when priests visited. On August 1, 2007, Fr. Oliver Herbel
began serving the mission as her pastor.
In the fall of 2007,
the family informed our mission parish that it desired to make a different use
of the building and so we sought another worship space. After initially meeting in an unoccupied
house owned by a friend of one of our parishioners, we were approached by
Pastor Ron Bock of St. John’s Lutheran Church, who had been informed of
our situation by Dr. Roy Hammerling of Concordia College. Pastor Ron and the council of St. John’s
Lutheran Church graciously agreed to allow us to use their facilities in return
for a modest gift in thanks.
Presently, we continue to meet at St. John’s Lutheran Church and
are grateful for their kindness as we seek to build our parish. We meet regularly on Saturday mornings
at 10am and we meet for various other services, based on the Orthodox Church
calendar and the calendar of services at St. John’s Lutheran Church.
Since the family that
had allowed us use of a church building retained the name All Saints Orthodox
Church, we renamed ourselves St. Nicholas Antiochian Orthodox Christian Church,
with the blessing of our Bishop, Mark, and His Eminence, Metropolitan
Philip. We humbly ask that St.
Nicholas pray for us as we move forward and build a parish that glorifies our
Lord and God and Savior, Jesus Christ.
Fr. Oliver continues to serve as the parish pastor and we have begun
taking steps necessary for building up our small parish. We pray for the day when we will have
our own worship space but welcome all who wish to join us even now. Please feel free to visit at any time!