Parish Background

St. Nicholas Orthodox Church is a parish of the Diocese of New England within the Orthodox Church in America, which is headed by His Beatitude Metropolitan TIKHON.  As a diocesan parish, we are under a Diocesan Hierarch or Bishop, currently also His Beatitude Metropolitan TIKHON.  We are an American Orthodox parish with no foreign or specific ethnic connection.  Our mission statement is to provide the beauty of the Eastern Orthodox Christian worship to the people in our locale, our town, and our neighborhood.  

St. Nicholas Church was begun in 1915 as a Russian Orthodox Church (actually named St. Nicholas Russian Orthodox Greek Catholic Church) by families primarily from the area now Belarus and Northwestern Ukraine.  In 1909, people of the Russian Orthodox faith in the Norwich area organized to raise funds and provide assistance to other such families in times of need.   This became the base for the establishment of a Russian Orthodox Church in Norwich.

Blessed by the Russian Orthodox Church authorities, the Church building was erected in the Greenville neighborhood through much sacrifice, love, and hard work by the parishioners themselves.  The Church was consecrated on November 25, 1915.  Several years later, the property for St. Nicholas Cemetery on the West side of the city was acquired. In 1921, the rectory next to the Church was built, again by the labor of the parishioners themselves.  

The 1920's began a difficult period for the Russian Church in America which could no longer be obedient to authorities in Russia, who were under Bolshevik control.   The Church was administered by bishops elected in America.  Still, from the 1920's to 1970. The parish struggled but flourished, with the community worshiping in the Church Slavonic language and continuing the Orthodox worship in spirit and in truth.  

The year 1970 was a landmark for St. Nicholas Church.  In that year, the Russian Orthodox Church in America was officially granted the right of self-governing by the Moscow Patriarch, ending nearly fifty years of authority confusion.  No longer dependent on a foreign entity, the Church renamed itself The Orthodox Church in America (OCA), with a mission statement to bring the Orthodox faith to the people of America.  By 1970, St. Nicholas Church services were in a mix of Church Slavonic and English.  As the Church population became dominated by 3rd generation Americans and many converts, the service language became almost entirely in English by the year 2000.  

In the 1980's, major renovations were made to both the exterior and interior of St. Nicholas Church.  New gold-leaf cupolas and new stained-glass windows were provided.  Inside, a new wooden icon screen (iconostasis) was designed and installed.  Subsequently, the icons and iconographic presentation was re-done by well-known iconographer, Fr. Andrew Tregubov.  

Today, the Church consists of (1) people in the locale who have become Orthodox; (2) descendants of the founders of the Church; and (3) people from various ethnic Orthodox backgrounds.   The beauty of the worship space cries out and draws us to the worship of our Lord God and Savior, Jesus Christ. 

St. Nicholas Church continues to provide worship in the Eastern Orthodox manner to the community.  Many say this eastern worship well-preserves aspects of the worship of the early Church.  Although Eastern Orthodox worship is not widely known in this country, those who encounter it find it to be a blessed way to worship our Lord Jesus and to live our lives.  After all, Christianity is an eastern religion!