Orthodox Christian dating in New Jersey
Orthodox dating in New Jersey: Bergen, Passaic and Hudson, the centre, the shore and the Delaware side, and how to find a spouse. Free, no subscription.
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Short answer
If you are Orthodox and single in New Jersey, almost none of the Church here is more than an hour away, and there is a great deal of it: the Greek metropolis has its cathedral in Tenafly, Jersey City has had an Orthodox cathedral since 1907, Paramus has two parishes of two jurisdictions on the same road, the old Russian parishes of South River, Manville, Trenton and Passaic date from 1905 to 1925, and on the shore the Russian Church Abroad keeps a cathedral in Howell and a memorial church in Jackson that was begun in 1938. South of Trenton the map thins to Medford and a hermitage in the pines, but even there Philadelphia is half an hour away.
The site this page belongs to is cana.love, a free dating site for people who want marriage. Its questionnaire asks which church you attend and how often, what you do about fasting, and which of twelve Orthodox jurisdictions you belong to, so that a Greek from Paramus Road and a convert from the other end of Paramus Road can find each other by what they do in Lent and not by a box that says "Christian".
Not an Orthodox-only site, and the section on what cana.love is and is not says who else is here.
Orthodox Christians in New Jersey
Orthodoxy in New Jersey came with the mills and the factories along the rivers. Emigrants from the Vilna province, driven by the famine of 1891, settled in South River, where the first Russian Orthodox family was already living, and founded SS Peter and Paul in 1905, the oldest parish on this page. Jersey City followed in 1907, when St Alexander Hotovitsky was appointed to administer the new parish that bought a Dutch Reformed church of 1857 on Grand Street and is a cathedral today; Manville in 1915, three years after the Johns-Manville plant opened; Trenton the same year, with about thirty Russian immigrants; Paterson in 1921, where a handful of Greeks met in a room above a restaurant on Market Street and founded the parish that moved to Paramus in 1979; Passaic in 1925 and Clifton in 1930. In 1936 Archbishop Vitaly of the Russian Church Abroad blessed a parish of St Alexander Nevsky on a donated tract in Howell, and two years later, for the 950th anniversary of the Baptism of Rus', the decision was taken to raise a memorial church to St Vladimir at the Russian farms in Jackson.
The second layer belongs to the suburbs and to English. Christ the Saviour in Paramus was founded in 1960; the first liturgy of Holy Resurrection in Wayne was served in the Wayne fire house in August 1964, and the same September five Princeton undergraduates who had founded a campus fellowship got the first regular Orthodox liturgy at the university; Holy Trinity in Rahway and Holy Apostles in Saddle Brook date from 1968, the Annunciation in Brick from 1970, founded to present the faith in English to Orthodox of every nationality, and Holy Cross in Medford from 1973, founded on the conviction that Orthodoxy did not require a language or a cuisine. The Greek cathedral in Tenafly has been a house of worship since 1968.
Orthodox Studies Institute, 2024; national figures, not New Jersey's
Since then the largest change has been the converts: adults who came to the faith with no Orthodox family behind them. It has been counted: in twenty parishes across six jurisdictions and fifteen states, the Orthodox Studies Institute found that two thirds of the people received since 2013 were under forty when they came in, that the thirties were the largest single age group, and that 44 percent were unmarried at the time.
New Jersey was not counted on its own, but the person in those figures is the one at coffee hour in Medford or Brick: an adult who chose the faith, often from a Protestant family, and who has not married yet; the parishes founded from 1960 onward were built for exactly that person.
Five jurisdictions cover the state. The Greek Orthodox Metropolis of New Jersey is seated at St John the Theologian in Tenafly and has St Athanasios in Paramus, Holy Trinity in Westfield, the Ascension in Fairview and St Demetrios in Jersey City among its parishes. The Orthodox Church in America's Diocese of New York and New Jersey has a New Jersey Deanery of more than twenty parishes: the cathedral in Jersey City, the old parishes of South River, Manville, Trenton, Passaic and Clifton, the suburban ones in Paramus, Wayne, Saddle Brook, Rahway, Brick and Medford, and the chapel at Princeton. The Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia has its own New Jersey deanery, with the cathedral in Howell, the memorial church and a Cossack cemetery chapel in Jackson, parishes in Newark, New Brunswick, Rocky Hill, Wayne, Branchville, Vineland and Trenton, and the Hermitage of the Holy Protection at Buena. The Antiochian Archdiocese has St George in Little Falls; the Serbian, Romanian, Albanian and Carpatho-Russian churches are present too, and the Assembly of Canonical Orthodox Bishops keeps the directory that lists them all.
Where the community gathers
New Jersey is four rooms stacked north to south: Bergen, Passaic and Hudson; the centre from Westfield to the Raritan; the shore; and the Delaware side.
Bergen, Passaic and Hudson
Bergen, Passaic and Hudson hold half the parishes on this page. The Greek cathedral is on East Clinton Avenue in Tenafly; Paramus Road has St Athanasios at number 51 and Christ the Saviour at 365, a Greek parish and an OCA one a few minutes apart; St John the Baptist is on Lexington Avenue in Passaic, the Assumption in Clifton, Holy Resurrection in Wayne, Holy Apostles in Saddle Brook, St George on Long Hill Road in Little Falls, the Ascension in Fairview; and Jersey City has the OCA cathedral on Grand Street and the Greek St Demetrios. Here the question is never whether there is a parish but which of a dozen, and Route 17 at five o'clock decides more than the miles.
The centre
The centre runs from Westfield down to the Raritan. Holy Trinity, the Greek parish, is on Gallows Hill Road in Westfield; Holy Trinity of the OCA is in Rahway; the Russian Church Abroad has Our Lady of Kazan in Newark and the Protection in New Brunswick; and across the Raritan are the two oldest parishes of the deanery, SS Peter and Paul in South River, founded in 1905, and SS Peter and Paul in Manville, founded in 1915, with the Princeton chapel and St Elizabeth at Rocky Hill to the south-west.
The shore
The shore is Monmouth and Ocean counties. Howell has the cathedral of St Alexander Nevsky on Alexander Avenue, with the Tikhvin church on the same grounds and St George on East Third Street; Jackson, twenty minutes west, has St Vladimir Memorial Church on Perrineville Road and, on the cemetery of St Vladimir, the OCA parish of the Nativity of the Holy Virgin; Brick has the Annunciation. For a Russian-speaking Orthodox in New Jersey this is the centre of the map.
The Delaware side
The Delaware side is Trenton and everything south. St Vladimir on Grand Street in Trenton dates from 1915 and the Russian Church Abroad keeps an Assumption parish in the city; Holy Cross is at Medford, half an hour from Philadelphia; the Russian Church Abroad has Holy Trinity in Vineland and the Hermitage of the Holy Protection in the pines at Buena. Atlantic City and Cape May have no parish on this page.
Cathedrals and parishes worth knowing
A house of worship since 1968 and the cathedral of the Metropolis of New Jersey; its Greek festival at the end of May was held for the fifty-fifth time in 2026.
353 East Clinton AvenueTenafly
Founded in 1907 with St Alexander Hotovitsky as its first pastor, in a church built in 1857 for the Free Reformed Dutch congregation.
109 Grand StreetJersey City
Established on 31 October 1921 in a room above a restaurant on Market Street in Paterson; in Paramus, on land beside the Saddle River, since 1979.
51 Paramus RoadParamus
Founded in 1960, a few minutes up the road from St Athanasios.
365 Paramus RoadParamus
Organized in October 1924 and in its own church by November 1925.
170 Lexington AvenuePassaic
The Antiochian parish of the north.
237 Long Hill RoadLittle Falls
The Greek parish of Westfield, with its own Greek festival.
250 Gallows Hill RoadWestfield
Founded in 1905 by emigrants from the Vilna province; the oldest parish on this page.
76 Whitehead AvenueSouth River
Organized in 1915 by families of Russian heritage three years after the Johns-Manville plant opened.
605 Washington AvenueManville
Established in 1936 with the blessing of Archbishop Vitaly; the present cathedral is a work of the 1990s, and the Tikhvin church stands on the same grounds.
200 Alexander AvenueHowell
Decided upon in 1938, for the 950th anniversary of the Baptism of Rus', at the Russian farms of Cassville.
134 Perrineville RoadJackson
Founded in 1973 on the conviction that Orthodoxy needs neither a language nor a cuisine; the parish of the Delaware side.
11 Wilkins Station RoadMedford
The deanery alone has more than twenty parishes; for all of them, of every jurisdiction, the directory of the Assembly of Canonical Orthodox Bishops is the place to look.
Distances that decide everything
A schematic, not a map. Driving times as given in the text.
In New Jersey the unit of distance is the exit, and the hour decides it: Tenafly to Paramus is fifteen minutes when Route 4 is empty and forty when it is not, Paramus to Jersey City half an hour, Jersey City to Westfield forty minutes, Westfield to South River half an hour more. The shore is an hour from Westfield down the Parkway; Howell to Jackson is twenty minutes, Howell to Medford an hour on I-195, Trenton to Princeton twenty minutes. Tenafly to Cape May is three hours, and nobody dates across it.
Choose a search radius by the Sunday you would honestly make, liturgy, lunch and home before the traffic, and remember that a New Jersey mile costs more at five than at noon. For most people that is one room: Bergen and Passaic, the centre, the shore or the Delaware side, each of which has more than one parish inside it. A search across the whole state finds more people and adds the Parkway or the Turnpike to every first meeting, which is a small price here and a real one on a Friday evening; the profile has room to say which you think it is.
The Orthodox year in New Jersey
Parish festivals
The Greek parishes keep them from spring to autumn: Tenafly at the end of May, Westfield and Fairview on their own dates, announced on the parish sites. A festival is a food fair to the town and a reunion to the parish, and it is the one weekend when a stranger at the gate is who everyone hoped would come.
St Vladimir's Day at Jackson
The memorial church on Perrineville Road was raised in honour of St Vladimir, whose feast falls on 28 July, and keeps that day as its own; the Cossack cemetery chapel of the Russian Church Abroad stands nearby on Cassville Road.
The hermitage
The Hermitage of the Holy Protection at Buena receives visitors by its own schedule, deep in the pines of the south; a day there is where people from the shore and the Delaware side meet without a festival between them.
The campus
Holy Transfiguration Chapel at Princeton grew from a fellowship of five undergraduates in the early 1960s and has held a regular Orthodox liturgy on campus since September 1964; if you are a student or a recent graduate, the network already exists.
Sunday of Orthodoxy
On the first Sunday of Great Lent the parishes of each room keep one Pan-Orthodox Vespers together, clergy and faithful of every jurisdiction in one church; which parish hosts it changes each year, and the diocesan sites announce it.
Diocesan gatherings
Assemblies, young-adult retreats and clergy-laity meetings are kept by each diocese on its own calendar, posted on the sites above; they are where Bergen County meets the shore.
Dating across jurisdictions, and with converts
A Greek from St Athanasios and a convert from Christ the Saviour share Paramus Road and a faith, and the first thing each needs to know is what that faith looks like on a Wednesday in the Nativity fast. The cana.love questionnaire exists to begin that conversation.
Practice, not labels
It asks which church you attend, how often you are really there, what you do about fasting, and whether you want marriage or someone to text with. Orthodox members choose among twelve jurisdictions, each listed by name, the OCA, ROCOR, Greek, Antiochian, Serbian, Romanian, Albanian and Carpatho-Russian among them, and Catechumen is a choice of its own for people still on the way in.
Five languages, Russian included
The site is fully translated into five languages: English, Spanish, Portuguese, German and Russian. In New Jersey that reaches the Russian of Howell and Jackson and the Spanish and Portuguese the cities speak at home; an optional AI feature translates a message between two members who write in different ones.
Checked before it is visible
Every profile and every photo is reviewed before it is visible to anyone, and anything doubtful goes to a person to decide. Asking members for money is a permanent removal, without a warning.
Free, with no paid tiers
Seeing who viewed your profile and who liked you is free here, which on most sites is the part behind the paywall; there is no subscription and there are no paid tiers. The optional AI extras run on credits, 150 of them at registration, and at present there is no way to add to them. Sign-in is by a one-time link or code to your email, with no password to keep.
What cana.love is and is not
cana.love is not an Orthodox-only platform.
Christians of other traditions and people who hold the same values about marriage without a confession of their own are here as well, and every member sets their own filters for whom to see. In a state where a Greek cathedral, a Russian cathedral and an OCA one are all within an hour of each other, it would be easy to leave the impression that everyone here is Orthodox; we would rather say plainly that they are not. What the site promises is that your jurisdiction, your practice and your intention are questions on the form and that the people you meet answered them; the About page tells the rest.
Meeting safely
- Never send money to someone you have not met, whatever the reason given; on cana.love the request alone ends an account for good.
- Meet in a public place, tell someone you trust where you will be, and keep the conversation on the site until you are comfortable moving it.
The guidelines page sets out what is reviewed before a profile is shown, how a report is handled and how an appeal works.
Common questions
Is cana.love available in New Jersey?
Yes. It is a web application open to adults anywhere, New Jersey included, in English, Spanish, Portuguese, German and Russian; it runs in a browser on a phone or a computer, and there is nothing to install.
How far should I search in New Jersey?
By the Sunday you would honestly drive for a liturgy and lunch: one room of the state for most people, Bergen and Passaic, the centre, the shore or the Delaware side. Widen to the whole state only if the Parkway on a Friday evening does not put you off.
Which jurisdictions have cathedrals in New Jersey?
The Greek Metropolis of New Jersey at St John the Theologian in Tenafly, the Orthodox Church in America at SS Peter and Paul in Jersey City, and the Russian Church Abroad at St Alexander Nevsky in Howell.
Is there an Orthodox monastery in New Jersey?
The Hermitage of the Holy Protection of the Russian Church Abroad, at Buena in the pines of the south; it receives visitors by its own schedule.
Where is the oldest Orthodox parish in New Jersey?
SS Peter and Paul in South River, founded in 1905 by emigrants from the Vilna province; Jersey City's cathedral follows in 1907, and its church building is older still, built in 1857.
Where can I find every Orthodox parish in New Jersey?
In the directory of the Assembly of Canonical Orthodox Bishops, kept with every jurisdiction, and on the diocesan sites: the Greek Metropolis of New Jersey, the OCA Diocese of New York and New Jersey, the ROCOR Eastern American Diocese and the Antiochian Archdiocese.
Next steps
Create a profile at cana.love. The community guidelines are worth reading before your first conversation, and the About page explains who runs the site and how. Then find your room of the state, find its calendar, and find the person.
Reviewed on September 19, 2026.
Photographs, all Wikimedia Commons: St Alexander Nevsky Russian Orthodox Cathedral in Howell, New Jersey — Farragutful, CC BY-SA 4.0 · SS Peter and Paul Orthodox Cathedral on Grand Street, Jersey City — Oleg Yunakov, CC BY-SA 4.0 · The dome of St Vladimir Memorial Church, Jackson, New Jersey — Russian Orthodox Cathedral of St John the Baptist, Washington (Flickr), CC BY-SA 2.0