Genuine Orthodox Priest to Visit Tennessee

Father Anastasios Hudson, a priest in the Genuine Orthodox Church of America, will visit the Nashville, Tennessee area the weekend of April 10-11, 2010. Father Anastasios, who serves as priest of two GOC Missions in Raleigh and Greenville, North Carolina, also serves as sponsoring priest of the GOC mission effort in Tennessee. He is a graduate of St. Vladamir's Orthodox Seminary and was ordained a priest in 2008. (Pictured from left to right: GOC Metropolitan Pavlos and Father Anastasios Hudson at his ordination in 2008)

Father Anastasios is the mission coordinator for the Genuine Orthodox Church in America, whose Metropolis is located in Astoria, New York.  A native of Ohio, and trained and educated in New York, Father Anastasios has devoted his life and ministry to mission efforts in the Southern states. "It has been my dream for some time to share Orthodox Christianity with Americans in the South", says Father Anastasios, "Orthodoxy, which is the original Church founded by Jesus Christ, is not well known here due to the complications of history. But slowly this is beginning to change, and we have started to find people in the community looking for a more traditional form of Christianity which is at the same time not stagnant but spiritually powerful", he said.

In 2009, a small community of believers in Tennessee surfaced and contacted Father Anastasious about becoming a mission of the Genuine Orthodox Church of America. Since that time, local Tennessee residents have been holding a weekly Reader's Service Without A Priest and the Typica. Over the months, numerous calls and inquiries from interested individuals and families, have come in, prompting Father Anastasios' first visit in April. GOCTN, the local Tennessee Mission community, will host Father Anastasios who will serve the community's first Liturgy on Sunday morning followed by a reception and a question and answer session. All who are interested in knowing more about this mission work are invited to attend the Liturgy and the reception/Q&A session.

For more information and the schedule of events or to talk with Father Anastasios or GOCTN Coordinator, Nathan Lewis, go to http://www.goctn.org/ and use the Contact Form. All calls and inquiries are welcomed.

UPDATE: 3/18/2011- The mission effort was put on hold when the sponsoring family went to another jurisdiction. JTO recommends the GOC jurisdiction, whose local Churches can be found throughout the United States and around the world, to all those seeking a true and genuine Orthodox church.