Orthodox Christian dating in Tennessee
Orthodox dating in Tennessee: Nashville and Franklin, Memphis, Chattanooga, Knoxville and Oak Ridge, and how to find a spouse. Free, no subscription.
Create your profileAn illustration, not a data map.
- Greek
- Antiochian
- OCA
Short answer
Tennessee has a young Church, and most of it prays in English. The Greek parishes are the old layer: Nashville's Holy Trinity counts its history from 1917 and its first Greek settler from 1884, Knoxville's St George from the arrival of one family around 1915, Chattanooga's Annunciation from the immigrants of the 1920s. Everything else is newer than the interstates. In February 1987 a whole congregation in Franklin was chrismated at once and became St Ignatius; St John in Memphis has passed thirty-five years; St Anne in Oak Ridge began with a few families meeting monthly in a borrowed Catholic hall in 1997; the Romanians came to Old Hickory in 2000, Memphis and Chattanooga got OCA parishes in 2001 and 2003, Murfreesboro an Antiochian one in 2005, and Clarksville's parish grew out of the chaplaincy at Fort Campbell after 9/11 closed the base to civilians.
If you are Orthodox and single here, cana.love is the site this page belongs to. Free of charge, built for marriage rather than for browsing, it asks on its form the questions a Tennessee parish would ask you over coffee: which church, how many Sundays, what you do with the fasts, and which of twelve Orthodox jurisdictions is yours, so that a Greek from Franklin Pike and a convert from St Ignatius Lane begin from what they actually keep.
The site is not Orthodox-only; a section below says so in full.
Orthodox Christians in Tennessee
The first Greek Orthodox settler of Nashville, by the parish's own account, was a man from Sparta who had been peddling fruit and candy from a pushcart in St Louis in 1884; the community his successors built counts its history from 1917 and once worshipped in a former school on 6th Avenue before moving to Franklin Pike. Knoxville's community dates from about 1915 and the arrival of the Cazana family, worshipped in an old Baptist church on Broadway until 1968, opened its doors on Kingston Pike that year and consecrated the altar in 1978. Chattanooga's Greeks came in the 1920s and 1930s, moved to Glenwood Drive in 1962 and finished their church in 1967. Memphis has its Annunciation on North Highland Street. For sixty years those four parishes were most of the Orthodox Church in Tennessee.
The second layer arrived in one generation and speaks English. St Ignatius in Franklin was established in February 1987 when a congregation was chrismated together by Metropolitan Philip, with four deacons and three priests ordained for it and the land bought by its first pastor; St John in Memphis is celebrating more than thirty-five years. St Anne in Oak Ridge began in 1997 with a few families and occasional visiting clergy and was meeting every Sunday by February 1998. Then, in quick succession: St John Chrysostom, the Romanian parish in Old Hickory, in 2000; St George in Bartlett, outside Memphis, in 2001; St Tikhon in Chattanooga in 2003; St Elizabeth in Murfreesboro, five founding families who had been driving to two other parishes, granted mission status at the end of 2004 and serving their first liturgy in January 2005; the Protection of the Holy Virgin in Clarksville in 2007, after the Orthodox community that had gathered at Fort Campbell since the mid-1970s found the base closed to its civilian members; and St Maria of Paris in Cleveland, begun in 2009 under the care of Oak Ridge and a mission from 2011.
Orthodox Studies Institute, 2024; national figures, not Tennessee's
How young, and how single? The Orthodox Studies Institute asked, across twenty parishes in six jurisdictions and fifteen states, and its answer for the converts received from 2013 on was: two thirds under forty, more of them in their thirties than in any other decade, and 44 percent unmarried on the day of their reception.
The study did not single out Tennessee, but you will meet its convert at coffee hour in Franklin or Oak Ridge without looking hard: an adult out of a Baptist or Methodist family, received as a grown-up, not yet married. The parishes founded here since 1987 were founded by that person and for that person.
Four jurisdictions cover the state. The Greek Orthodox Archdiocese has Holy Trinity in Nashville, under the Metropolis of Detroit, and St George in Knoxville, the Annunciation in Chattanooga and the Annunciation in Memphis. The Orthodox Church in America's Diocese of the South has St Anne in Oak Ridge, St George in Bartlett, St Tikhon in Chattanooga, the Protection in Clarksville and St Maria of Paris in Cleveland, and its Romanian Episcopate has St John Chrysostom in Old Hickory. The Antiochian Archdiocese has St Ignatius in Franklin, St Elizabeth in Murfreesboro and St John in Memphis. The Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia has St Nektarios in Lenoir City, St Tikhon the New Martyr in Blountville, a Western Rite parish in Chattanooga, missions in Lebanon and White Pine and a Western Rite skete at Dayton. The rest are in the directory of the Assembly of Canonical Orthodox Bishops.
Where the community gathers
Tennessee is three grand divisions, and the Church follows them: Middle Tennessee around Nashville, West Tennessee at Memphis, and East Tennessee from Chattanooga up to Knoxville and the Tri-Cities.
Middle Tennessee
Middle Tennessee holds five of the twelve parishes on this page. Holy Trinity is on Franklin Pike in the south of Nashville; St Ignatius on its own lane in Franklin, half an hour down I-65; St Elizabeth on Burnt Knob Road in Murfreesboro, forty minutes down I-24; St John Chrysostom, the Romanian parish, on Union Street in Old Hickory to the north-east; the Protection of the Holy Virgin on York Road in Clarksville, fifty minutes up I-24 toward Fort Campbell; and the Russian Church Abroad has a mission in Lebanon. Nashville's problem is not which parish exists but which side of the city you live on when I-65 backs up.
West Tennessee
West Tennessee is Memphis. St John, the Antiochian parish, is on Tutwiler Avenue in Crosstown; St George, the OCA parish, on Highway 70 in Bartlett to the north-east; the Greek Annunciation on North Highland Street. Jackson, between Memphis and Nashville, has no parish on this page.
East Tennessee
East Tennessee is two cities and the valley between. Chattanooga has the Annunciation on Glenwood Drive, St Tikhon on Lookout High Street under Lookout Mountain and a Western Rite parish of the Russian Church Abroad; Cleveland, half an hour up I-75, has St Maria of Paris. Knoxville has St George on Kingston Pike and, half an hour west, St Anne in Oak Ridge; the Russian Church Abroad has St Nektarios at Lenoir City and, in the Tri-Cities, St Tikhon at Blountville. Johnson City and the Smokies have no parish on this page.
Cathedrals and parishes worth knowing
A community whose history runs from 1917 and whose first settler arrived from St Louis in 1884; its Greek festival is the city's.
4905 Franklin PikeNashville
Established in February 1987, when a whole congregation was chrismated together and its first pastor bought the land the church stands on.
3535 St Ignatius LaneFranklin
A home fellowship that became a mission at the end of 2004 and served its first liturgy in January 2005.
7004 Burnt Knob RoadMurfreesboro
The Romanian parish of Nashville, founded in 2000.
4112 Union StreetOld Hickory
Grown from the Orthodox community at Fort Campbell, gathered since the mid-1970s; a parish of its own since 2007.
1261 York RoadClarksville
More than thirty-five years of worship in Memphis.
1663 Tutwiler AvenueCrosstown
A missionary parish of the OCA since the summer of 2001, formerly St Seraphim.
6984 US Highway 70Bartlett
A community since about 1915; on Kingston Pike since 1968, its altar consecrated in 1978; its Greek Fest is Knoxville's.
4070 Kingston PikeKnoxville
Begun in 1997 by a few families; Sunday services since February 1998.
560 Oak Ridge TurnpikeOak Ridge
The Greek parish of Chattanooga, on Glenwood Drive since 1962, in its church since 1967.
722 Glenwood DriveChattanooga
Founded in 2003, under Lookout Mountain.
357 Lookout High StreetChattanooga
Begun in 2009 under the care of St Anne in Oak Ridge; a mission since 2011.
3815 Old Tasso Road NECleveland
Memphis's Greek parish, the Russian parishes of Lenoir City and Blountville, and the missions of Lebanon and White Pine are in the directory of the Assembly of Canonical Orthodox Bishops, which all the jurisdictions keep together.
Distances that decide everything
A schematic, not a map. Driving times as given in the text.
Tennessee is long and its interstates are honest. Nashville to Franklin is half an hour on I-65, to Murfreesboro forty minutes and to Clarksville fifty on I-24, to Old Hickory twenty. Nashville to Chattanooga is two hours on I-24, Chattanooga to Knoxville an hour and three quarters on I-75, Nashville to Knoxville two and a half on I-40, and Nashville to Memphis three hours west on the same road; Knoxville to Oak Ridge is half an hour and Chattanooga to Cleveland the same. Memphis to Knoxville is six hours, and nobody dates across it.
Pick the radius the way you would pick a Sunday: liturgy, then coffee hour, then home before the afternoon is gone, on a road you already know. Here that comes out as your grand division, Middle, West or East, with your city and the parishes an hour around it inside the circle; Chattanooga and Knoxville can share one, Nashville and Memphis cannot. Searching the whole state puts I-40 into every first date, which some people welcome and some do not; the profile is the place to say which you are.
The Orthodox year in Tennessee
Parish festivals
The Greek parishes keep the big ones: Nashville's Greek Festival at Holy Trinity and Knoxville's Greek Fest at St George, with dates on the parish sites. The town comes for the food; the parish comes home; and a stranger at the gate is, that weekend, the point of the exercise.
The English-speaking parishes
In most of the state the parish founded after 1987 is the English one, and its coffee hour is where inquirers, catechumens and converts meet: Franklin, Murfreesboro, Oak Ridge, Bartlett, Chattanooga, Cleveland. If you are new to the Church, these are the doors that were built for you.
Fort Campbell
The Clarksville parish keeps the ties it was born with, and for an Orthodox soldier or an Orthodox family posted to the base it is the parish that already knows how deployments work.
The Tri-Cities and the Smokies
Blountville's St Tikhon and White Pine's mission are small and far from everything on this page; in a parish that small, a visitor is a name by the second Sunday.
Sunday of Orthodoxy
Vespers on the first Sunday of Great Lent is the one service a year that Nashville, Memphis, Chattanooga and Knoxville each keep with all their jurisdictions under one roof; the roof rotates, and the diocesan sites name it.
Diocesan gatherings
The dioceses keep their own calendars of assemblies, young-adult retreats and clergy-laity meetings, all dated on the sites linked above, and on those days Memphis and Knoxville are in the same room as Nashville.
Dating across jurisdictions, and with converts
Half an hour of I-65 separates Holy Trinity on Franklin Pike from St Ignatius on its lane in Franklin, and a Greek from the first and a convert from the second are both Orthodox in every sense that matters and different in most of the ones that come up at a kitchen table: the calendar, the fasts, the language of the liturgy, what a wedding looks like. cana.love asks about those things on the form, before the first message, which is earlier than most couples get to them.
Practice, not labels
The form wants to know your parish and how many Sundays a month you are actually in it, what you do about fasting, and whether marriage is what you came for. An Orthodox member also chooses one of twelve jurisdictions, each with its own line, OCA, ROCOR, Greek, Antiochian, Serbian, Romanian and onward to Catechumen, which is there because the study above puts many of the people looking exactly at that point.
Five languages, Spanish included
Every page of the site, not only the first, is in English, Spanish, Portuguese, German and Russian; for Tennessee the ones that matter are the Romanian of Old Hickory, the Russian of the eastern parishes and the Spanish of the cities. Members writing in two different languages have an optional AI translation between them if they want it.
Checked before it is visible
Before a profile or a photograph is visible to anyone, it has been reviewed; the automatic pass hands anything uncertain to a person. A member who asks another for money loses the account for good, with no warning beforehand.
Free, with no paid tiers
There is no paid tier, no subscription and no charge for seeing who visited you or who liked you, the two things most sites hold back. The one thing that costs anything is the optional AI help, which runs on credits: 150 at registration, and for now no way to get more. Sign-in is a link or code to your email, once, so there is no password to guard.
What cana.love is and is not
cana.love is not an Orthodox-only platform.
Members include Catholics, Protestants and people of no confession who want the same kind of marriage, and every member chooses through filters whom to see. In a state whose parishes were mostly founded by converts from Protestant churches, with more still on the way in, pretending otherwise would be odd. The undertaking the site makes is smaller and firmer: everyone on it, you included, answered the same questions about jurisdiction, practice and intention. The About page says the rest.
Meeting safely
- No money to anyone you have not met in person, ever; on cana.love a request for money is something to report, and the person who made it is removed for good.
- The first meeting is in a public place, someone you trust knows where, and the conversation stays on the site until you, not the other person, decide to move it.
Reviews, reports and appeals are set out on the guidelines page.
Common questions
Is cana.love available in Tennessee?
Yes; it is open to adults anywhere, Tennessee included. It runs in the browser, on a phone or a computer, with no app to install, and it is in English, Spanish, Portuguese, German and Russian.
How far should I search in Tennessee?
Keep the radius you would keep on a Sunday: your grand division, and inside it your city and the parishes within an hour. A statewide search means I-40 before every first meeting; widen only if that is fine with you.
Which Orthodox parishes in Tennessee serve in English?
Most of those founded since 1987: St Ignatius in Franklin, St Elizabeth in Murfreesboro, St John in Memphis, St Anne in Oak Ridge, St George in Bartlett, St Tikhon in Chattanooga and St Maria of Paris in Cleveland among them; the Greek parishes serve in Greek and English.
Is there an Orthodox monastery in Tennessee?
None on this page; the Russian Church Abroad keeps a Western Rite skete of Our Lady of Walsingham at Dayton, between Chattanooga and Knoxville, listed in the diocesan directory.
Where is the oldest Orthodox parish in Tennessee?
Knoxville's St George traces its community to about 1915 and Nashville's Holy Trinity counts its history from 1917; Chattanooga's Greeks arrived in the 1920s.
Where can I find every Orthodox parish in Tennessee?
Start with the directory of the Assembly of Canonical Orthodox Bishops, which every jurisdiction contributes to, then the diocesan lists: the Greek Metropolises of Detroit and Atlanta, the OCA Diocese of the South and Romanian Episcopate, the Antiochian Diocese of Miami and the Southeast, the ROCOR Eastern American Diocese.
Next steps
Create your profile on cana.love, and before the first message read the community guidelines; the About page tells you who runs the site and how. Then your grand division, its calendar, and the person.
Reviewed on September 19, 2026.