Our Story

2005-2013

On September 14, 2005, a small group of families from Greensboro, Winston-Salem and High Point met to discuss the need for a new Orthodox Mission church with all-English services in the Triad area. They prayerfully decided to begin this new work, and Father Marcus Burch of Greenville, SC and Father William Mills of Charlotte were instrumental in helping establish the Mission. Fr. Marcus served the first Divine Liturgy in March, 2006.

In May, Archbishop Dmitri, of blessed memory, gave our Mission the name Holy Cross, commemorating the Exaltation of the Holy Cross which is celebrated on the date the founders first met. Later that month, we joyfully learned that Father Christopher Foley had been assigned to our church. Father Christopher came to us directly from St. Vladimir's Orthodox Theological Seminary after his graduation. In July, Fr. Christopher served his first Divine Liturgy with us at Ashford Suites Inn on Hwy 68, our temporary home at the time.

Archbishop Dmitri visited our parish in September and encouraged us not to be ashamed of the Gospel and to proclaim with boldness Jesus Christ, who is the fulness of what it is to be man and what it is to be God. His visit blessed us at this early stage of our mission. (His Eminence would inspire and encourage us with a second visit in March 2008.) Within the next few months, we leased the unused Fellowship Hall of Christ Presbyterian Church at 645 Greensboro Road in High Point. After renovating, painting, and installing carpet (and eventually an iconostas in the summer of 2007), Fr. Christopher served our first Divine Liturgy in High Point on December 24, 2006. This would be our home for the next 14 years, and we were very happy and grateful to God!

In 2020, the Presbyterian church closed and the property was sold. We were blessed to find a new temporary home at a Methodist church between Walkertown and Winston-Salem. We leased the entire first floor of the church and now had a second "Tabernacle in the Wilderness" that was even more spacious than our first!

Long before the Presbyterian church closed, however, our need for more space had become obvious. We agreed that we needed to build a new church with more room to welcome all who God would bring to us. But where?

We had faithful parishioners from all across the Triad. We did research, talked together, prayed together, and finally agreed that a central location would best serve our mission. In 2009, we voted unanimously to purchase land and build our new church in Kernersville, in the heart of the Triad. After several years of searching for a suitable location, in 2013 we purchased the property at 1320 Masten Road. We raised the cross you see below as a sign of hope and encouragement that one day we would build our church.