Parish History

Currently, St. John Orthodox Church numbers about 400 parishioners – men, women, children and baptized infants. Plus a sizable and growing group of catechumens and inquirers. Most live in the Memphis metropolitan area, although quite a few drive to services from west Tennessee, north Mississippi and east Arkansas. Occasionally, even western Kentucky and the Missouri bootheel.

The church began in the late 1960s when some Campus Crusade students began to meet regularly as an independent church. Over the years, the church adopted more and more Orthodox practices, and was finally received into canonical Orthodoxy in 1987.

The St. John parish has helped begin Orthodox missions in Little Rock, AR (Holy Trinity); Mountain Home, AR (now closed); Tupelo, MS (St. Paul); and most recently, Jackson, TN (St. Nicholas). The church also supports through its labor and offerings St. Paul Skete, a small Orthodox monastic community located just outside Grand Junction, TN.