Who We Are
Our Parish
All Saints of North America is an Orthodox Church in Middlebrook, Virginia, serving the Staunton, Waynesboro, and Harrisonburg areas. (We also have parishioners who come from Charlottesville, Roanoke, Salem, and Richmond!) We are a parish of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia. We are a traditional Orthodox Christian body, following the Old Calendar (Julian) and other traditional practices such as head coverings for women, modest dress, confession before taking Communion, standing for the services, and the chanting of the Liturgy without instruments.. We are located in the heart of Virginia's beautiful Shenandoah Valley, where our priest and many of us in the parish were born and raised. All services are conducted in English.
Our Rector
Father John was born and raised here in Virginia’s beautiful Shenandoah Valley. He had been a Methodist minister and with his wife struggled to serve God in that Church for many years. They encountered the Orthodox Faith while he was on a leave of absence doing graduate study in England. By the grace of God and warm and sacrificial support from Orthodox clergy he met in the years after his return to the US, he converted to the Orthodox Faith, and was ordained to the priesthood in 1996. Father John's blog now is available on this site! We invite you to peruse what he calls, "Ramblings of a Redneck Priest."
A Bit of History
Our first very small congregation met in a Lutheran Church for about three months, until Matushka Alexandra found a property in Middlebrook, listed as a house "with a large storage building" attached. The home had been built in the 1850s and was in need of much repair. The “storage building” turned out to be a church, built in 1884, also fallen into disrepair, overgrown with vines, broken windows, no electrical service, no plumbing, no heat, brickwork needing repair, and a leaking roof. With much "fear and trembling" Father and Matushka negotiated a loan to purchase the property and restoration work began on the church and the house. The image below, compared with that above, will give an indication of the extent of needed renovation.
By the grace of God, and much prayer, support, and hard work from fellow Orthodox clergy, family members, and parishioners, the church and rectory were repaired, and an altar and iconostas were constructed. Several years later an adjacent house was purchased for a parish hall, where we now have our trapeza after liturgy, as well as a few rooms for those who travel some distance to come to services and need to stay overnight. We celebrated our 10th Anniversary in 2006 with joy and gratitude to God and to all those whose sacrificial efforts have helped establish this parish and help it grow.
Our Church
We are part of the Eastern Orthodox Church, which is the Church that Jesus founded in the Middle East more than 2,000 years ago, as it remained in the East, and stayed faithful to what it was given by Jesus and His apostles. Our parish is dedicated to All of the Saints of North America. You can find out more about all of these on our pages devoted to Orthodox Christianity.
All Saints of North America Russian Orthodox Church is a parish of the Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia (ROCOR), also known as the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad.
*The Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia - A History and Chronology, Fr. Alexey Young, now Hieromonk Ambrose, St. Willibrord's Press, San Bernardino, California, 1993, from the introduction.... the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia preserves the best of "old Holy Russia." At the same time, it also represents the historic and Apostolic Church of Christ in its Slavic expression.*