{"id":119456,"date":"2014-06-19T22:23:08","date_gmt":"2014-06-20T04:23:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/orthodox-church-archbishop-visits-durango-parish\/"},"modified":"2014-06-19T22:23:08","modified_gmt":"2014-06-20T04:23:08","slug":"orthodox-church-archbishop-visits-durango-parish","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/orthodox-church-archbishop-visits-durango-parish\/","title":{"rendered":"Orthodox Church archbishop visits Durango parish"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Archbishop
Archbishop Benjamin Peterson of the Orthodox Church in America, left, was a guest Sunday morning at the Holy Prophet Elijah Mission, lead by the Rev. Father Benjamin Huggins, right.<\/span>JENNAYE DERGE\/Durango Herald<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

The Holy Prophet Elijah Mission in Durango on Sunday closed its weekly service with a special guest: Bishop Benjamin Peterson, the Archbishop of San Francisco and the West of the Orthodox Church of America.<\/p>\n

About 16 people attended the service in the Main Mall. The mission is led by the Rev. Benjamin Huggins.<\/p>\n

Peterson said he oversees churches and missions \u2013 65 total \u2013in 10 western states, and that duty brought him to Colorado.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a family of churches,\u201d Peterson said. \u201cBasically, of the eastern part of the Mediterranean: Greece, Bulgaria, Russia, Serbia, Romania, and the middle East: Lebanon, North Africa and Egypt.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said it was united with the Roman Catholic Church until 1054, when they split in the Great Schism. In North America, it began with a Russian mission in 1794 in Alaska. Currently, there are about 1.2 million members of the church in the U.S.<\/p>\n

Peterson said a diversity in the church is reflective of America itself.<\/p>\n

\u201cAmerica is a country of people who have immigrated from all kinds of places,\u201d he said. \u201cOur church reflects that. I\u2019m Scottish and Swedish, the Dean of my church is Japanese. Some of the parishioners are Russian, Ethiopian \u2013 all kinds of people \u2013 that\u2019s what America is. That\u2019s what we\u2019re about.\u201d<\/p>\n

One of the oldest Orthodox parishes in the United States is in Calhan, Colorado, Peterson said, founded by Czechoslovakians a hundred years ago.<\/p>\n

He described the sect as conservative, but one that adapts.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou have to keep expressing ancient truth in new ways that are accountable in 2000 years of Orthodox history,\u201d he said, \u201cyet relevant in terms people will understand.\u201d<\/p>\n

Huggins welcomes the calling. Arriving in Durango last July, the Durango School District 9-R special education teacher and his wife, Lauren, a registered nurse, saw an opportunity for the parish in the region. They briefly congregated in an old cabin near Lemon Reservoir before establishing a new home.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur hope is that we grow, and this is a good, central meeting place for us,\u201d Huggins said.<\/p>\n

\u201cDurango is a very spiritual place,\u201d he said. \u201cYou see all of the churches on Third Avenue, and you see Tibetan prayer flags on porches.\u201d<\/p>\n

Originally from Colorado Springs, Huggins attended seminary in Pennsylvania.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe wanted to be back in Colorado,\u201d he said, \u201cto be able to come to a place that doesn\u2019t have a very large congregation.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople find fulfillment and healing,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd that\u2019s what I have found in it.\u201d<\/p>\n

bmathis@durangherald.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

church reflects America\u2019s immigrant roots<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":119457,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5990,5843],"tags":[13,407],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-119456","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-faith","category-living","tag-frontpage-lead","tag-religion-and-belief"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119456","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=119456"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119456\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/119457"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=119456"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=119456"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=119456"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=119456"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}