Religion in Massachusetts

The largest collection of icons and Eastern Christian art in the United States: Russian, Greek, Veneto-Cretan, and Ethiopian icons spanning nearly two thousand years. Five galleries in a beautifully restored historic building in a picturesque New England mill town, a research library, an auditorium for lectures and concerts, a museum shop, and a Study Center that hosts lectures, conferences, workshops, and internships.

St. Andrew Ukrainian Orthodox Church in the Jamaica Plain neighborhood of Boston was formed in 1954 by the Ukrainian community, and in 1958 it built a church designed by a Ukrainian born architect from Toronto: a modernist interpretation of the famous Saint Andrew Church in Kyiv, with onion domes and crosses. Services are in English and Ukrainian, and the doors are open both to Ukrainians and to anyone who wants to pray with the community.

Holy Epiphany Russian Orthodox Church in Roslindale, Boston was founded in 1951 by refugees who ended up in displaced persons camps in Germany after the Second World War. The parish belongs to the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia, its present church has served the community since 1971, and in 2017 it was expanded with a lift, a larger trapeza hall and a roomy choir loft.

The parish of St. Xenia of St. Petersburg in Methuen, Massachusetts began in the late 1980s as a small community attached to the Holy Epiphany parish of Boston: the first prayers were held in a house chapel, and the first service in a school hall took place on August 13, 1989. Lots decided the name: from more than thirty proposed, the oldest parishioner drew the slip that read St. Xenia. Since May 1996 the community has prayed in a church of its own, built on the grounds of a former Russian cemetery, and all services here are in English.

The parish of Holy Epiphany was founded in 1951 in Boston by refugees who had passed through displaced persons camps in Germany together with members of the older Russian emigration. The first services were held in the baptistery of the Greek cathedral, which gave the parish its name of Epiphany, then in a former Methodist church, and since 1971 the parishioners have prayed in a church of their own in the Roslindale neighborhood, built by the parish itself. Services are held mainly in Church Slavonic on the Julian calendar.

The parish of St. John the Russian was founded in 1976 in the historic colonial town of Ipswich, Massachusetts, and belongs to the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia. Its heavenly patron was a Russian soldier captured by Tatars in 1711, sold into Asia Minor and become a righteous man, whose relics rest on the Greek island of Evia. All services are in English on the Julian calendar, and after the Sunday Liturgy parishioners and guests share a common meal.