Orthodox Christian dating in Colorado

Orthodox Christians in Colorado

In 1898 immigrants in the Globeville smelter district of Denver incorporated the Greek Catholic Church of the Transfiguration of Christ and brought a Uniate priest from Austria-Hungary. In 1904 they sought out the Orthodox bishop in America instead, and St Tikhon received them; he visited Denver three times and in 1905 consecrated the church that is now the cathedral of the OCA's Rocky Mountain deanery on East 47th Avenue. In Pueblo, Slovak Uniates had organized St Michael's in 1900 and 1901; after their first priest died, and tired of the local Roman Catholic hierarchy, they petitioned Tikhon in 1903 to receive them, and Fr Vladimir Kalneff arrived as their first full-time pastor in 1905, the year the bishop came to Pueblo himself. Families from Calhan were in the crowd at Pueblo in 1903 and went home with the hope that the archbishop would found a church for them too; Holy Dormition dates its founding from 1905 and still serves the descendants of the Slovak pioneers who built it.

The Greeks built a cathedral. The Assumption of the Theotokos on East Alameda Avenue is the metropolis cathedral of Denver, the seat of a diocese that reaches across the mountain states, with St Catherine in Greenwood Village, Sts Peter and Paul in Boulder, the Archangel Michael in Colorado Springs and St John in Pueblo as its parishes in the state. The Russians of the emigration founded All Saints of Russia in 1952, bought a house on King Street for $3,000, and in 1966 moved a church building to a lot near the University of Denver; it is the only parish of the Russian Church Abroad in Colorado and serves in Slavonic and English. The Serbs built St John the Baptist in Lakewood; the Romanians have St Dimitrie the New in Frederick and St John the Hozevite in Lakewood.

Then came the parishes founded in English. St Herman's mission was established on 25 October 1972 and served its first liturgy four days later in an American Legion hall in Lakewood; it bought a Bible chapel on West Prentice Avenue in Littleton, served the first liturgy there on 4 September 1976 and was consecrated on 30 October 1977, its fifth birthday. Holy Theophany in Colorado Springs was founded in 1974, finished its church in 2002 and a hall in 2009, and in 2025, when its people no longer fit on a Sunday morning, built a second church. The Antiochians have St Luke in Erie and two Western Rite parishes, St Columba in Lafayette and St Mark in Denver. On the Western Slope, St Andrew in Delta was founded in 1980 by people who describe themselves as among the very few Orthodox in that part of the vast West; Grand Junction has the mission of Holy Wisdom, and Montrose a mission that began in 2019, closed for two years and reopened in October 2022. The nuns of the Protection of the Holy Virgin came to Lake George in 1993, bought ten acres and a house below Pikes Peak in 1995, and are, in their own words, presently very small.

Who are the people filling the second church in Colorado Springs? The Orthodox Studies Institute asked in twenty parishes across six jurisdictions and fifteen states, and of the converts received since 2013 it reported two thirds under forty at their reception, the thirties the largest decade, and 44 percent single when they arrived.

Colorado was not a line of its own in that report, but its subject is the person pouring coffee on Chestnut Street or Prentice Avenue: raised evangelical or Catholic or nothing, received as an adult, not yet married. Two of the state's parishes were founded in English for that person, and one of them outgrew its church because of them.

Six jurisdictions cover the state. The Greek Orthodox Metropolis of Denver has its cathedral on Alameda Avenue and parishes in Greenwood Village, Boulder, Colorado Springs and Pueblo. The Orthodox Church in America's Diocese of the West has the Transfiguration Cathedral in Denver, St Herman in Littleton, Holy Theophany and a mission in Colorado Springs, St Michael in Pueblo, Holy Dormition in Calhan, St Andrew in Delta, missions in Grand Junction, Montrose and Parker, and the monastery at Lake George; its Romanian Episcopate has St Dimitrie in Frederick and St John the Hozevite in Lakewood. The Antiochian Archdiocese has St Luke in Erie, St Columba in Lafayette and St Mark in Denver. The Serbian Orthodox Church has St John the Baptist in Lakewood. The Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia has All Saints of Russia in Denver. The directory of the Assembly of Canonical Orthodox Bishops has the rest.

Where the community gathers

Colorado's Church runs down the Front Range along I-25, Boulder to Pueblo, with the Western Slope four hours away over the passes.

Distances that decide everything

The Orthodox year in Colorado

Dating across jurisdictions, and with converts

Half an hour of Denver separates the Greek cathedral on Alameda from the older cathedral in Globeville and both from the Serbs in Lakewood and the Russians on Iliff; an hour and a quarter of I-25 separates them all from the second church in Colorado Springs. What the cana.love form does not ask is as telling as what it does.

Meeting safely

• Money goes to no one you have not met in person; on cana.love a request for money is a reason to report, and the one who asked is removed permanently.
• Meet first in a public place, with someone you trust told where you are, and keep the conversation on the site until moving it is your own decision.

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