Orthodox Christian dating in Minnesota

Orthodox Christians in Minnesota

Northeast Minneapolis first. The Orthodox Church in America's Diocese of the Midwest keeps its Minneapolis Deanery around St Mary's Cathedral, the parish of 1887 whose first priest was St Alexis Toth and whose 1905 church, inspected in 2003 and found to need a new copper roof, new dome windows and a waterproofed foundation, was restored by a capital campaign to which parishioners pledged 2.7 million dollars; the cathedral serves Vespers Tuesday to Friday evenings and lists a dozen attached and retired clergy alongside its dean. Across the river in South Minneapolis, St Herman's was the first OCA mission in the state, founded in 1976 and made a full parish in 2001, and its own directory entry says who fills it: converts from Lutheran, Episcopal, Baptist, Evangelical Free, non-denominational, Nazarene, Roman Catholic, Methodist, New Age and atheist backgrounds. In Prospect Park, by the university, St Panteleimon of the Russian Church Abroad was consecrated on 22 April 1956 by Archbishop Gregory, the first bishop of the Chicago and Detroit diocese, and kept its seventieth anniversary on its feast in August 2026.

Then St Paul. Holy Trinity on Forest Street on the historic East Side was co-founded by working-class Belorussians and Serbs and bore the name Russian-Serbian Orthodox Church until 1990; without a priest and almost closed in the late eighties, it was revived with mission funding and is now a community of about a hundred adults of Palestinian, Greek, Serbian, Russian and non-ethnic background, all services in English, five days a week. St Elizabeth the New Martyr on Congress Street on the West Side has gathered since 2003 and calls itself culturally diverse. St George Greek Orthodox Church stands on Summit Avenue, the city's grand boulevard, and St Sava Serbian Orthodox Church on Second Avenue South in South St Paul, the old packing-house town down the river.

The Greeks of Minneapolis are on the lake. St Mary's Greek Orthodox Church on Irving Avenue South sits on the shore of Bde Maka Ska in the Metropolis of Chicago, and the metropolis lists three more Minnesota parishes: St George in St Paul, Holy Anargyroi on West Center Street in Rochester, and Twelve Holy Apostles on East Second Street in Duluth, the Greek church of the Lake Superior port.

The people filling the mission parishes have been counted. 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.

Minnesota was not named among the twenty, but St Herman's directory entry describes exactly the person the survey counted: raised Lutheran or Catholic or Methodist or nothing, received as an adult, English-speaking, not yet married. Holy Trinity's English-only services on the East Side, St Elizabeth's on the West Side, Holy Myrrhbearers beside St Cloud State and the new mission in Bemidji, which serves two Liturgies a month in private homes, exist for that person.

Four jurisdictions cover the state on this page. The Orthodox Church in America has the cathedral and St Herman's in Minneapolis, Holy Trinity and St Elizabeth in St Paul, Holy Myrrhbearers in St Cloud and the mission in Bemidji, with its deanery reaching into the Dakotas, Iowa and western Wisconsin. The Greek Orthodox Metropolis of Chicago has St Mary's in Minneapolis, St George in St Paul, Holy Anargyroi in Rochester and Twelve Holy Apostles in Duluth. The Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia has St Panteleimon in Minneapolis. The Serbian Orthodox Church has St Sava in South St Paul. The Antiochian archdiocese's directory could not be read for this page, and its Minnesota parishes are not listed below.

Where the community gathers

Minnesota's Orthodox gather in the Twin Cities, in St Cloud and the north, in Duluth, and in Rochester.

Distances that decide everything

The Orthodox year in Minnesota

Dating across jurisdictions, and with converts

Five kilometres separate the cathedral of a Rusyn saint from the Russian church of 1956; eight, from the Greek church on the lake; a river, the OCA of St Paul from the Serbs of South St Paul; and three hours, all of it from Bemidji. The cana.love form was written with those distances in mind, and this is what happens when you use it.

Meeting safely

• Money goes to no one you have not met in person; on cana.love the request is grounds for a report, and the one who asked is removed for good.
• A first meeting is in a public place, a friend knows where you are, and the conversation stays on the site until you, not the other person, decide otherwise.

Reviews, reports and appeals are explained on the guidelines page.

Common questions