Orthodox Christian dating in Canada

Orthodox Christians in Canada

The prairies first. The Orthodox Church in America's Archdiocese of Canada lists its communities by deanery from Atlantic Canada to British Columbia and Yukon, and the list reads like a map of the settlement of the West: Holy Trinity Church and Cemetery at Smoky Lake, the Nativity of the Holy Virgin at Kysylew-Andrew, Sts Peter and Paul at St Walburg, Holy Apostle Andrew at Canora, Holy Trinity at Moose Jaw, and in the cities the parishes those settlers' grandchildren built, the Russian Greek Orthodox Cathedral of the Holy Trinity on Manitoba Avenue in Winnipeg, Holy Trinity on 96 Street in Edmonton, St Herman of Alaska Sobor on 167 Street, St Peter the Aleut in Calgary, Holy Resurrection Sobor on East 43rd Avenue in Vancouver. The archdiocese's seat is in Ottawa, at the Cathedral of the Holy Annunciation and St Nicholas on Eccles Street under Archbishop Irénée; it keeps a Montreal Institute of Orthodox Theology, Orthodox Christian Studies at Trinity College in Toronto, a prison fellowship named for St Silas and a page on the Church and Indigenous peoples in Canada, and it makes an annual pilgrimage to the Hermitage of the Holy Annunciation in Nova Scotia.

Then Montreal. The Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of Canada, of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, keeps its Cathedral of St George at 2455 Côte-Sainte-Catherine, with the Annunciation on St Roch Street, the Archangels in Cartierville and the Dormition on De L'Épée; the Antiochians keep St George on Jean-Talon Est, built in 1939 and 1940 for the Syrian Orthodox community of the city and designated a National Historic Site of Canada in 1999; the Orthodox Church in America keeps the Sign of the Theotokos on boulevard Saint-Joseph Est on the Plateau and a Moldovan parish of the Dormition on rue Guizot; and Christ the Saviour at Shefford, in the Eastern Townships, is a monastery chapel with a parish of St Seraphim.

Toronto is where the jurisdictions stand shoulder to shoulder. St George's Greek Orthodox Church on Bond Street, in the heart of downtown, and St Nicholas Cathedral on Finch Avenue East in Scarborough belong to the Greek archdiocese, whose archbishop Apostolos sits in the city and whose Patriarchal Toronto Orthodox Theological Academy trains its clergy; the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia's Holy Trinity Cathedral on Henry Street, by the University of Toronto, is the seat of its Diocese of Montreal and Canada; the Orthodox Church in America's Christ the Saviour Cathedral is on Manning Avenue in the Annex, with a mission of the Holy Myrrhbearers at Trinity College on Hoskin Avenue; St Sava Serbian Orthodox Church on River Street was consecrated on 22 May 1955; and St Demetrios on Thorncliffe Park Drive and All Saints on Bayview Avenue fill the Greek suburbs. Everything is a streetcar ride from everything else.

The people filling the mission parishes have been counted south of the border. The Orthodox Studies Institute surveyed twenty American parishes across six jurisdictions and reported, of the converts received since 2013, that two thirds were under forty at their reception, that people in their thirties outnumbered every other decade, and that 44 percent were single when they came in.

Those are American numbers, and Canada is not in them; but the person they describe is at the coffee hour in Calgary at St Peter the Aleut or in Kingston at St Gregory of Nyssa: raised Anglican or Catholic or United or nothing, received as an adult, not yet married. The Archdiocese of Canada's missions from Cranbrook to Trois-Rivières exist for that person, and the Greek and Russian cathedrals have made room for them.

Five jurisdictions cover the country. The Orthodox Church in America's Archdiocese of Canada has the Ottawa cathedral, cathedrals in Toronto, Winnipeg and Vancouver, parishes and missions in every province, and the monasteries at Dewdney in British Columbia and New Germany in Nova Scotia. The Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of Canada has cathedrals in Montreal and Toronto and communities from Glace Bay to Victoria. The Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia has its Diocese of Montreal and Canada with the Toronto cathedral. The Antiochian Archdiocese has St George in Montreal and parishes in the cities. The Serbian Orthodox Eparchy of Canada has St Sava in Toronto and its cathedral in Hamilton. Romanian and Bulgarian parishes are in the big cities as well.

Where the community gathers

Canada's Church is the Saint Lawrence corridor from Montreal to Toronto, the prairie cities, the West Coast, and Halifax at the far end.

Distances that decide everything

The Orthodox year in Canada

Dating across jurisdictions, and with converts

Three kilometres separate four jurisdictions in downtown Toronto; five, three parishes in Montreal; a flight, the corridor from the prairies and the coast. The cana.love form was written with those distances in mind, and here it is in the order people ask.

Meeting safely

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Common questions