Our Parish
St. Herman of Alaska Orthodox Church is a parish in the Diocese of the West of the Orthodox Church in America (OCA). We are in full communion with most Orthodox Churches throughout the world, including Russian Orthodox, Greek Orthodox, Antiochian Orthodox, and Serbian Orthodox. We began as a small mission in the early 1990s, and today we are a growing, thriving parish.
God created the world so that He could live in man, and man could live in Him. This is the ultimate purpose of existence.
This purpose came to fruition with the Incarnation. As St. Athanasius famously said, “God became man so that man might become God.” Through Jesus Christ’s life, death, Resurrection, Ascension, and the sending of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, God came to dwell in man, and we in God.
St. Herman of Alaska Orthodox Church in Port Townsend is a community of people who have become “partakers of the divine nature” (2 Pt 1:4) through receiving the sacraments of Baptism, Chrismation, and Eucharist.
Through our continued life in Christ’s Body—the Church—we strive to become more godlike. We seek to grow in our communion with God through our worship, participation in the sacraments, prayer, fasting, almsgiving, and following of the commandments. We seek to further know and see God through fighting spiritual warfare and becoming healed of our passions.
That’s what life at St. Herman’s is about. That’s what life is about.