BOSTON, USA: From hotel to holy ground: Church's new home sacred and stable

 

KERNERSVILLE — A few weeks ago, the land south of Business 40 was an overgrown mess.

But in recent days, volunteers from Holy Cross Orthodox Church and other helpers cut back the underbrush and weeds.

“We had chainsaws going here, we had weed whackers, it was unbelievable,” church member Walter Bilous said. “We must have had 25 people out here working.”

And Sunday, the 100-person congregation that started in a High Point hotel took the biggest step yet toward building its permanent home on the newly cleared lot.

Archbishop Nikon formally blessed the 2-acre site in an hour-long ceremony under a pair of billowing, white tents.

That rendered the site suitable for all future church functions, said the archbishop, who traveled all the way from Boston to officiate.

“Everything is holy ground because God created it, but this land is set apart now as holy because we acknowledge it and we say so,” said the archbishop, known by the single name that is spelled like the camera manufacturer but pronounced “knee-con.”

Not long after its founding in a banquet room at the Ashford Suites Hotel, the fledgling congregation moved in 2006 to rental space at Christ Presbyterian Church on Greensboro Road in High Point.

But it soon outgrew the space there, and members have been dreaming of building their own house of worship for a long time, said Father Christopher Foley, Holy Cross pastor.

The church is part of the Orthodox Church in America, which shares lineage with Greek and other Eastern Orthodox congregations.

“It’s the third major branch of Christianity” in addition to Catholicism and the Protestant denominations, Foley said.

About 60 percent of his church’s members are converts from other, non-Orthodox denominations, he said.

Holy Cross bought the land near the intersection of Masten Drive and Whicker Road earlier this year, seeing Kernersville as a perfect location for a relatively new church that is attracting members from all parts of the Triad, Foley said.

A visitor to Holy Cross would notice that the entire service is in English, whereas other Eastern Orthodox denominations are more prone to include portions in Greek, Serbian or another language in keeping with the ethnic roots of their particular congregation, Bilous said.

The ceremony Sunday afternoon included psalm reading, prayer and a litany — all spoken aloud at different times by a reader and the choir, the congregation, the archbishop and other church officials.

The service ended after the archbishop walked the grounds, dispersing droplets of water he had blessed first on a recently erected cross and then on the land.

The congregation hopes to break its newly consecrated ground as soon as next summer for its church, said member Doug Forstrom, who is helping with the planning.

“We’re thinking of a wooden structure with more of an old, European look,” he said. “So it has a little bit of everybody’s background instead of just one.”

Now comes a big earthly challenge: Forstrom figures the church will have to raise $700,000 to get started next year, and as much as $1.2 million to build both the church and a fellowship hall.