Orthodox Christian dating in Maryland
Orthodox dating in Maryland: Baltimore's ring, the Washington suburbs, Columbia and the Eastern Shore, and how to find a spouse. Free, no subscription.
Create your profileAn illustration, not a data map.
- Greek
- OCA
- ROCOR
- Antiochian
- Serbian
- Monastery
Short answer
Maryland's Church lives in two rings an hour apart. Baltimore's ring is the old one: the Greek Cathedral of the Annunciation, a parish since the spring of 1906, in its church on Preston Street since April 1937; St Andrew, thirty families in 1940 and a first liturgy on Lombard Street in February 1941; St Nicholas, twelve men in the old Highlandtown Greek school in September 1952; St Demetrios, a first liturgy in an elementary school in November 1970; the Russian Transfiguration on East Baltimore Street; Holy Cross in Linthicum, which bought a Methodist church of 1911 in 1997; St Mary in Hunt Valley. The Washington ring is younger: St Mark in Bethesda, founded in 1972 to worship in English, St George beside it, two parishes side by side on River Road in Potomac, one Antiochian and one Serbian, and St Theodore in Lanham. Between and beyond: Columbia's St Matthew, born in a Fort Meade chapel in 1988; Annapolis; Frederick; a parish on the Eastern Shore that began in a medical building in 2000; and a Georgian women's monastery at Union Bridge.
The site this page belongs to is cana.love: free, made for people who want marriage rather than a match, with a form that asks what you would be asked over coffee after liturgy in Highlandtown or on River Road: which parish, how many Sundays a month, what you do about fasting, which of twelve Orthodox jurisdictions is yours. A Greek from Preston Street and a convert from Camp Meade Road meet on what they keep.
Not Orthodox-only: the honest section is below.
Orthodox Christians in Maryland
The Greeks of Baltimore founded their parish in the spring of 1906, welcomed their first full-time priest off a steamship two days later, bought a Methodist church at Homewood Avenue and Chase Street in 1909, and in 1912 bought the first Orthodox burial ground in the state, the Greek Circle at Woodlawn Cemetery. In the 1920s the congregation split over the royalist-republican quarrel back in Greece, founded a second parish called Holy Trinity, and reunited by 1930. On 23 April 1937 they processed from Homewood Avenue to a former Congregational church on Preston Street and served the first liturgy there; Archbishop Athenagoras consecrated it on 8 May 1938, and it is the cathedral today.
The Russians and Rusyns came next. Thirty families founded St Andrew in 1940 under the Metropolia, worshipped at Fayette and Linwood until they found a permanent building, served the first liturgy on East Lombard Street on Sunday, 16 February 1941, and had the church consecrated on 29 June the same year; the Transfiguration, a parish of the Russian Church Abroad, is a few blocks away on East Baltimore Street, and Holy Trinity, a parish of the Patriarchate of Moscow, is in the city too. On 14 September 1952, the feast of the Elevation of the Cross, twelve men met in the old Highlandtown Greek school and founded St Nicholas on the spot where its church now stands. On 29 November 1969 a meeting at the Pantelides house in the north of the county decided that a third Greek parish should exist, and exactly a year later St Demetrios served its first liturgy in Cromwell Valley Elementary School.
Orthodox Studies Institute, 2024; national figures, not Maryland's
Washington's Maryland suburbs built theirs in one generation. St Luke, the Serbian parish, was established in 1961 by immigrants who had come after the Second World War; its first liturgy was in the chapel of American University on 26 March 1961, it bought its River Road land in Potomac in July 2001, and it served the first liturgy in the finished church on the feast of the Elevation of the Cross in September 2014. St Mark in Bethesda was formed and served its first liturgy on 11 June 1972 as a parish dedicated to Orthodox worship in English, and kept its fiftieth anniversary in 2022. Sts Peter and Paul, the Antiochian parish, stands two doors from St Luke on River Road; St George, the Greek parish, on Bradley Boulevard; St Theodore in Lanham and Sts Constantine and Helen in Silver Spring on the Prince George's and Montgomery sides of the District. Annapolis's Greeks, who once rode the trolley to Baltimore for liturgy, completed their first church on Constitution Avenue in 1949 and opened the Hellenic Center on Riva Road in 1984.
The convert parishes came last. St Matthew in Columbia held its first service in the main chapel of Fort Meade on the fifth Saturday of Lent 1988, with an Air Force chaplain celebrating. Holy Cross began as a mission and in 1997 voted to buy a church in Linthicum that Methodists had built in 1911 and Baptists, Episcopalians and Korean Pentecostals had used since; the same year its priest's wife published Facing East, a book about a Protestant congregation finding Orthodoxy, and the parish still describes itself through that story. Christ the Savior served its first liturgy in a medical facility in Berlin on 5 March 2000, gathering the Orthodox of Ocean City and the lower Shore.
Who are the newcomers? The Orthodox Studies Institute counted them in twenty parishes, six jurisdictions and fifteen states: of the converts received since 2013, two thirds were under forty at their reception, more were in their thirties than in any other decade, and 44 percent were single when they came in.
Those are national figures, not Maryland's, but they describe the person you will meet at coffee hour on Camp Meade Road, Eden Brook Drive or Carey Road: raised in a Protestant church or in none, received as an adult, not yet married. Three parishes on this page were founded by that person, and St Mark was founded to serve them in their own language.
Eight jurisdictions cover the state. The Greek Orthodox Archdiocese's Metropolis of New Jersey has the Annunciation Cathedral, St Nicholas and St Demetrios in Baltimore, St George in Bethesda, St Theodore in Lanham, Sts Constantine and Helen in Silver Spring and in Annapolis, Sts Peter and Paul in Frederick and St George in Ocean City. The Orthodox Church in America's Archdiocese of Washington has St Andrew in Baltimore, St Mark in Bethesda, St Matthew in Columbia, St Catherine in Hagerstown, Christ the Savior in Berlin and a mission in Denton; its Romanian Episcopate has St Andrew the Apostle in Potomac. The Antiochian Archdiocese has Holy Cross in Linthicum, St Mary in Hunt Valley, Sts Peter and Paul in Potomac and a mission in Easton. The Serbian Orthodox Church has St Luke in Potomac. The Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia has the Transfiguration in Baltimore, the Holy Apostles in Beltsville and St Thecla in Wheaton; the Patriarchate of Moscow has Holy Trinity in Baltimore; the Carpatho-Russian Diocese has Holy Resurrection in Potomac and St Thomas in Waldorf; and the Patriarchate of Georgia keeps the women's monastery of St Sidonia at Union Bridge. The directory of the Assembly of Canonical Orthodox Bishops has the rest.
Where the community gathers
Maryland's Church sits in two rings, Baltimore's and Washington's, joined by an hour of I-95, with Columbia and Annapolis between them, Frederick and Hagerstown to the west and the Eastern Shore across the Bay Bridge.
Baltimore's ring
Baltimore's ring holds seven of the fifteen parishes on this page. The Annunciation Cathedral is on West Preston Street in Mid-Town; St Andrew on East Lombard Street and the Transfiguration on East Baltimore Street are a few blocks apart in Upper Fells Point; St Nicholas is on South Ponca Street in Highlandtown, in Greektown; St Demetrios is out on Cub Hill Road in the north of the county; St Mary is on Shawan Road in Hunt Valley up I-83; Holy Cross is on North Camp Meade Road in Linthicum by the airport. Inside the Beltway everything is twenty-five minutes from everything.
Washington's ring
The Washington ring holds five of them. St George on Bradley Boulevard and St Mark on River Road are in Bethesda, ten minutes apart; Sts Peter and Paul and St Luke are neighbours on River Road in Potomac, a short drive further out; St Theodore is on Cipriano Road in Lanham on the Prince George's side; Sts Constantine and Helen is on Norwood Road in Silver Spring, the Holy Apostles on Baltimore Avenue in Beltsville, St Thecla in Wheaton, and Potomac also has the Carpatho-Russian Holy Resurrection and the Romanian St Andrew. Members of all of them cross into the District for a feast without thinking of it as travel.
Between the rings, and the west
Between the rings and to the west: St Matthew is on Eden Brook Drive in Columbia, twenty-five minutes from Baltimore and forty from Bethesda; Sts Constantine and Helen is on Riva Road in Annapolis, forty minutes from Baltimore down I-97; Sts Peter and Paul is on West 7th Street in Frederick, an hour west on I-70, with St Catherine in Hagerstown a half hour beyond and the monastery of St Sidonia at Union Bridge in the farmland between.
The Eastern Shore
The Eastern Shore is one parish and two missions. Christ the Savior is on Carey Road in Berlin, ten minutes from Ocean City and three hours from Baltimore over the Bay Bridge; St George, the Greek parish, is in Ocean City itself; the Antiochians keep a mission in Easton and the OCA one in Denton. Salisbury has no parish on this page.
Cathedrals and parishes worth knowing
A parish since the spring of 1906; the Greek Circle at Woodlawn Cemetery since 1912; in the Preston Street church since the procession of 23 April 1937, consecrated by Archbishop Athenagoras on 8 May 1938.
24 West Preston StreetBaltimore
Founded by twelve men in the old Highlandtown Greek school on 14 September 1952, on the ground where the church stands; the parish of Greektown.
520 South Ponca StreetBaltimore
Decided at a meeting in a family's house on 29 November 1969; first liturgy in Cromwell Valley Elementary School exactly a year later.
2504 Cub Hill RoadBaltimore
Thirty families in 1940; first liturgy in the present church on 16 February 1941 and consecration that June; the Vladicon club has met since March 1941.
2028 East Lombard StreetBaltimore
The parish of the Russian Church Abroad in Upper Fells Point, a few blocks from St Andrew.
2201 East Baltimore StreetBaltimore
A mission that in 1997 bought a Methodist church of 1911 by the airport; the parish of the book Facing East.
105 North Camp Meade RoadLinthicum Heights
The Antiochian parish north of the city, up I-83 in Hunt Valley.
909 Shawan RoadHunt Valley
The Greek parish of Bethesda, ten minutes from St Mark.
7701 Bradley BoulevardBethesda
Formed on 11 June 1972 to teach and worship in English; its fiftieth anniversary was in 2022.
7124 River RoadBethesda
The Antiochian parish of Potomac, two doors from St Luke.
10620 River RoadPotomac
Established in 1961 with a first liturgy in the chapel of American University; on its River Road land since 2001, in its church since the Elevation of the Cross, September 2014.
10660 River RoadPotomac
The Greek parish of Prince George's County; its Fall Greek Festival is held in late September.
7101 Cipriano RoadLanham
First service in the main chapel of Fort Meade in Lent 1988, an Air Force chaplain at the altar; in larger and larger rooms in Columbia since.
7271 Eden Brook DriveColumbia
The Greek parish of Frederick and the west of the state.
920 West 7th StreetFrederick
First liturgy in a medical facility on 5 March 2000; the parish of the Delmarva shore, ten minutes from Ocean City.
10315 Carey RoadBerlin
Distances that decide everything
A schematic, not a map. Driving times as given in the text.
Maryland is small and its roads are full. Baltimore to Bethesda is an hour on I-95 and the Beltway when the Beltway allows it; Baltimore to Columbia twenty-five minutes, to Annapolis forty on I-97, to Hunt Valley twenty-five up I-83, to Frederick an hour on I-70 and to Hagerstown an hour and a half; Bethesda to Potomac fifteen minutes on River Road. The Eastern Shore is another matter: Baltimore to Berlin is three hours and a bridge, and on a summer Friday the bridge is the three hours.
The radius that works is a ring. Baltimore's ring, from Hunt Valley to Linthicum, is one search; the Washington ring, from Potomac to Lanham, is another, and the District's parishes belong to it; Columbia and Annapolis can take either ring for a feast and their own parish for a Sunday; Frederick looks west; the Shore is its own world. A search that spans both rings is honest only if you will drive the Beltway on a weeknight, and the profile is where to say so.
The Orthodox year in Maryland
Greek festivals
Lanham's St Theodore keeps its Fall Greek Festival in late September; the Annunciation, St Nicholas and St Demetrios in Baltimore and St George in Bethesda keep theirs, with the dates on the parish sites. The festival is the weekend a parish sets a table for the whole town, and the easiest weekend to be a stranger in it.
Slavas and patronal feasts
St Luke in Potomac keeps its slava on the feast of the Evangelist, 31 October, and the two parishes founded on the Elevation of the Cross, St Nicholas in 1952 and St Luke's church in 2014, both have reason to mark 14 September.
The monastery
St Sidonia at Union Bridge, a women's monastery of the Church of Georgia in the Carroll County farmland, receives visitors, keeps a summer camp in two sessions and holds retreats and workshops; a monastery weekend is where people from both rings meet without a festival tent.
The convert parishes
Columbia, Linthicum, Berlin, and St Mark in Bethesda: their coffee hours are where inquirers and catechumens are thickest, and their priests are used to the questions.
Sunday of Orthodoxy
On the first Sunday of Great Lent the parishes of Baltimore serve one Vespers together and the parishes of the Washington ring another, usually with the District's; the host changes from year to year, and the parish sites say where.
Diocesan gatherings
The Metropolis of New Jersey, the OCA Archdiocese of Washington, the Antiochian Diocese of Charleston, Oakland and the Mid-Atlantic and the Serbian Eastern American Diocese each keep assemblies, young-adult retreats and clergy-laity meetings, dated on their sites; those are the days the two rings sit in one room.
Dating across jurisdictions, and with converts
Two doors on River Road separate the Serbian St Luke from the Antiochian Sts Peter and Paul; an hour of I-95 separates both from the Greeks of Highlandtown. On cana.love you will notice four things before you notice anything else.
Practice, not labels
You will notice that the form asks what you do, not what you are called: your parish, how many Sundays a month you are actually there, your fasting, whether it is marriage you want. If you are Orthodox, the form names twelve jurisdictions one by one, OCA, ROCOR, Greek, Antiochian, Serbian, Romanian and six more, and Catechumen stands among them, because the study above says that is where many of the people looking are.
Five languages, Russian included
You will notice five languages, English, Spanish, Portuguese, German and Russian, on every page and not only the first; in Maryland that means the Serbian of River Road, the Russian of East Baltimore Street and Beltsville, the Romanian of Potomac and the Spanish of Silver Spring and Langley Park, and if the person you write to writes back in another of them, an optional AI feature can translate for both of you.
Checked before it is visible
You will notice that your profile and your photographs are not visible until they have been reviewed, and that what the automatic check cannot decide goes to a person; you will also notice, if you ever see it, that a member who asks another for money is gone for good, with no first warning.
Free, with no paid tiers
You will notice that nothing is behind a paywall: no subscription, no paid tier, and seeing who visited you and who liked you costs nothing, which on most sites is the part you pay for. The optional AI helpers run on credits, 150 at registration and no way to add to them for now; and there is no password, because sign-in is a one-time link or code sent to your email.
What cana.love is and is not
cana.love is not an Orthodox-only platform.
You will meet Catholics, Protestants and people with no confession who want the same kind of marriage, and you will decide through your own filters whom you see. In a state where one parish was founded to worship in English and three others by people who came in from Protestant churches, anything else would be a pretence. What you can hold the site to is exact: jurisdiction, practice and intention are questions on the form, and everyone you meet answered them, as you did. The About page has the whole account.
Meeting safely
- Send money to nobody you have not met face to face; 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, tell someone you trust where you are, and keep the conversation on the site until moving it is your own decision.
Reviews, reports and appeals are set out on the guidelines page.
Common questions
Is cana.love available in Maryland?
Yes. Adults anywhere can join, Maryland included; the site runs in the browser on a phone or a computer with nothing to install, in English, Spanish, Portuguese, German and Russian.
How far should I search in Maryland?
Your ring: Baltimore's from Hunt Valley to Linthicum, or Washington's from Potomac to Lanham with the District's parishes; Columbia and Annapolis can lean either way; the Eastern Shore is its own search. Both rings at once means the Beltway on weeknights; say on your profile whether you would.
Which Orthodox parishes in Maryland were founded by converts or for English?
St Mark in Bethesda was formed in 1972 for Orthodox worship in English; St Matthew in Columbia began in a Fort Meade chapel in 1988; Holy Cross in Linthicum bought its church in 1997 and is the parish of Facing East; Christ the Savior in Berlin began in 2000. Most parishes in the state now serve largely in English.
Is there an Orthodox monastery in Maryland?
One: the women's monastery of St Sidonia at Union Bridge, under the Patriarchate of Georgia, formerly named for St Nina, with a summer camp and retreats.
Where is the oldest Orthodox parish in Maryland?
Baltimore's Greek Cathedral of the Annunciation, established in the spring of 1906, in its own church from 1909 and on Preston Street since 1937. St Andrew, the OCA parish, followed in 1940.
Where can I find every Orthodox parish in Maryland?
The directory of the Assembly of Canonical Orthodox Bishops, then the diocesan lists: the Greek Metropolis of New Jersey, the OCA Archdiocese of Washington with the Romanian Episcopate, the Antiochian Diocese of Charleston, Oakland and the Mid-Atlantic, the Serbian Eastern American Diocese, the ROCOR Eastern American Diocese, the Carpatho-Russian Diocese; Holy Cross in Linthicum keeps a list of the local parishes of every jurisdiction on its site.
Next steps
Create your profile on cana.love; read the community guidelines before your first conversation and the About page for who is behind the site. Then your ring, its festival or its slava, and the person.
Reviewed on September 20, 2026.
Photographs, all Wikimedia Commons: Greek Orthodox Cathedral of the Annunciation on West Preston Street, Baltimore — ΙΣΧΣΝΙΚΑ-888, CC BY-SA 3.0 · St Andrew Orthodox Church on East Lombard Street, Baltimore — Baltimore Heritage, CC0 · The Annunciation Cathedral, a former Congregational church of 1888, from Preston Street — Baltimore Heritage, CC0 · The Lombard Street entrance of St Andrew Orthodox Church, Baltimore — Baltimore Heritage, CC0