Build Holy Apostles
/ Build Holy Apostles

 

JOIN US FOR THE NATIVITY SEASON!  ~  The Orthodox Church enters into the forty-day Nativity Fast beginning Friday, November 28, and extending to the Great Feast of the Nativity of Jesus Christ, celebrated on Wednesday, January 7.  All our services are open to the public, and we invite you to join us!

Learn about our Historic Chapel and our Parish Hall!

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Donate to our Building Fund

Learn about our vision for our Historic Chapel and Campus
Visitation of the Hawaiian Iveron Icon in 2024
Visitation of the Hawaiian Iveron Icon in 2024

 

Use these links to quickly navigate to our Special Features:

 


Go deeper into our Chapel & Building Project Archives:

Scroll down for our high-level overview of our twin projects:

  1. Restoring and beautifying our historic chapel gifted to us in 2009, and,
  2. Building our new parish hall, designed by Andrew Gould, which will enable us to move to our beautiful chapel campus while we complete the restoration of the chapel.

For a more in-depth history of how we have successfully raised and administered almost three-quarters of a million dollars towards achieving these two goals, follow the links below to our archived pages, shown in reverse chronological order:


Watch our Parish Hall Fundraising Video

 

The Mountain of God in Beltsville, Maryland

Video originally produced and posted in February 2021

 

Watch the video, then scroll down to learn more, and to see how you can help our vision be fulfilled. Use the Donate buttons at right to contribute your gift.

 

Thank you for your prayers and support!

(6/28/25) UPDATES: Since we received the Gift of the Chapel in 2009, we have made enormous progress towards moving to the chapel campus through the following:

 

  • Raised and administered over $400,000 in grants for the restoration of the Chapel;
  • Raised and administered over $300,000 towards pre-construction of the New Parish Hall.
    • Includes:
      • County approval of design,
      • Site planning, permits, property surveys, and soil erosion tests;
      • Hiring of our general contractor, Quarry View Buiding Group;
      • Contractor's detailed construction estimate and schedule, divided over three phases;
      • Preparing for initial land work and groundbreaking for the foundation of the new parish hall. 

_______

 

This video represents the hopes and prayers of the people of Holy Apostles, to establish our parish in its new home in Beltsville, Maryland, from which the parish can continue to thrive and grow, in its soul-saving mission. In order to do this, we need to build our new parish hall, designed by Andrew Gould. Then we can move to the property, and continue the restoration and renovation of the beautiful historic chapel, given to the parish in 2009.

 

Our prayer is that those who view this video will join us in our missionary work, by praying for us, and by generously donating towards the building of the parish hall.

 

“May the Lord bless everyone who will contribute to the building of the new parish hall,

and the growth of Christ’s vineyard, in Beltsville, Maryland.”

 

~ Metropolitan Hilarion,

First Hierarch of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia

 

Watch the video, then scroll down to learn more about the project. Visit our sub-pages detailing the history of the Chapel and New Parish Hall, check out our special page on Andrew Gould, view architectural renderings, and donate via the button at right and at top.

Scroll down to learn more about our Parish Hall Building Project and our Historic Chapel...


Visual History of our Historic Chapel and Parish Hall

Providing an overview of our Parish Hall Building Project through 2024 as we advance towards groundbreaking.

Hover over images to pause the presentation.  

Clicking on an image opens the presentation in gallery view,

with the ability to play the slide show or view individual slides.

 

View the presentation in PDF format...

Several slides have explanatory notes, in some cases several paragraphs' worth with significant information which goes beyond the Visual History. View the notes by enlarging the pages below, or download the notes in PDF format.


SPECIAL BLESSINGS

These special feature articles and stories from recent years are blessings too important and inspiring to be relegated to the archive pages telling the story of our Historic Chapel and New Parish Hall. We wanted to keep them on our "Front Page" for you (and us!) to be reminded and inspired by them over and over again. 

(VIDEO) Interview with our architect, Andrew Gould

New Feature Video Interview with our architect, Andrew Gould

Conducted by Jonathan Pageau (The Symbolic World podcast and YouTube channel), this 44 minute video presents a visual survey of some of Andrew's architectural design work, and discusses his vision for "how to integrate the past with the present regarding Orthodox creative endeavors."

We felt this was also the opportune time to provide a feature page for Andrew Gould on our parish website, as he has been a key figure in our story since 2017 with his visit to the parish and subsequent design of our New Parish Hall.  Proceed to Our Architect, Andrew Gould...

Originally posted July 11, 2022


Letter to Converts (and Cradle Orthodox!)

 

Mariya’s Letter to Converts

Our treasurer, Mariya Petrenko, has written a most beautiful and profound letter, addressed to an Orthodox convert, from a cradle Orthodox Christian.  With Mariya's permission, we are sharing it with you, here.

Originally posted October 14, 2018


Thank you, Frederica Mathewes-Green!

We wish to extend our sincere thanks to Frederica Mathewes-Green for helping us launch our Capital Fundraising Campaign on June 10, 2018. Frederica delivered an inspiring talk, 'Towards an Orthodox America', which perfectly resonated with our vision for our English-language Orthodox mission here in Beltsville, Maryland.

Watch the video from Frederica's talk and our June 10, 2018 Capital Campaign Launch Event on our YouTube channel...

Frederica Mathewes-Green is a wide-ranging author and speaker, whose work has appeared in numerous top-tier publications. She has been a regular commentator for National Public Radio (NPR), and has published 10 books to date, including her most recent title, Welcome to the Orthodox Church (Paraclete Press, 2015). She has published over 700 essays, and given over 500 talks...

To learn more about her writing, speaking, and books, visit Frederica's website at Frederica.com.

Originally posted June 17, 2018

Build Holy Apostles!

OUR VISION is to establish the parish in its new home, from where the parish can continue to thrive and grow as a living icon of Orthodox missions in America. Read our full Purpose and Vision Statement here, and join us as we Build Holy Apostles!

Want to contribute to our General Fund?

Please go to our Donate Page.

~ Thank you!


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Watch our Video!

Become a Church Builder!

 

Read the classic message: 'St John of Shanghai and San Francisco, Zealous Builder of Churches'

"In building churches here on earth, we create for ourselves eternal habitations in heaven."


Parish History:
1995-2001
Met. Hilarion at our parish, 2016
Met. Hilarion at our parish, 2016

 

EARLY BLESSINGS

 

The blessing for the foundation of Holy Apostles Orthodox Church was given by Bishop Gabriel of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad, on April 28th, 2001, on the eve of the Sunday of the Myrrh-Bearing Women, [but there was an earlier blessing from Bishop Hilarion] in the spring of 1995, for us to openly pray for and work towards the eventual establishment of the new mission parish... Read the rich and edifying early history here...

2001-2009

EARLY PARISH HISTORY

Our first house church, followed by our move to Twin Chimneys Office Park, leading up to the gift of the Historic Chapel.  Learn more here...

2009-2017

CHAPEL RESTORATION

Since 2009 we have been restoring our beautiful chapel, gifted to our parish that year by the Christian Brothers.

To date, we have received and administered grants of approximately $400,000 so far, and continue to apply for the grants as they become available.  Learn more here...

2017-2022

NEW PARISH HALL

In October 2017, after spending two days with us and our beautiful chapel campus, noted Orthodox architectural designer Andrew Gould shared with us his vision for an attractive parish hall echoing the "Queen Anne" style of our historic chapel.

For the launch of our Capital Building Fund in mid-2018 Andrew provided us with a lovely watercolor of his design, and since that time we have been fundraising and moving towards building the parish hall, raising and administering approximately $300,000 in pre-construction costs. Once we complete the parish hall, we can begin holding the divine services in it, while we continue to work on the restoration and beautification of the chapel.  Learn more here...

2023-2025

A TALE OF TWO TIMELINES

Our Dual-Timeline Display shows the progress of BOTH the Restoration & Renovation of our Historic Chapel, AND the Building Project for our New Parish Hall, projecting each out to completion.  

Get up to speed quickly with this helpful overview, and see more detailed recent updates here...  


Our Architect

ANDREW GOULD

 

Renowned Orthodox architectural designer Andrew Gould designed our parish hall and will also be involved with the design of the interior of our historic chapel.

 

Check out this special feature page with videos and more about the architect and our future parish home.


View Our Visual History

A Digital Slide Show

and

Building Project Report

 

START NOW

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Become a Church Builder!

 

 

 

 

Holy Apostles Orthodox Church, in Beltsville, Maryland, is a parish of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia (ROCOR), Eastern American Diocese, founded with the purpose of bringing the Gospel and Divine Services of the Russian Orthodox Church to the people of America in the English language. We invite you to come to any of the Divine Services or events at our mission church. In 2009 we were gifted a beautiful, historic chapel and two-acre campus by the Christian Brothers. Our vision is to establish the parish in its new home, from where the parish can continue to thrive and grow as a living icon of Orthodox missions in America.


EPISTLE BOOK, published by Holy Apostles Orthodox Church

 

The only Orthodox Epistle Book using the KJV text.

Includes the Acts and the Epistles, arranged for liturgical use according to Russian Orthodox practice. An appendix features all relevant prokeimena and readings for the whole year. Rubrics, introductory notes and monthly calendar for the Church Year are also included. Hardbound with full color dust cover, 632 pages. Published by Holy Apostles Orthodox Church and St Polycarp Press.

Full info and links to order on this special page.


St Romanos the Melodist Society

 

The St. Romanos the Melodist Society produces and publishes English language music of the Russian Orthodox Church.

 

The St. Romanos website is the online extension of A Church Singer's Companion, a project started in 1998 with the blessing of Metropolitan (then Archbishop) Laurus. Inspired by the Russian Sputnik Psalomshchika, the Companion is envisioned to contain the music necessary for every service a parish choir might need to sing, while staying simple enough so that any parish choir can sing it.

The St. Romanos Society produces music in both printed and recorded formats, and conducts seminars and workshops on the proper performance of that music. The Society is a sodality of Holy Apostles Orthodox Church, Beltsville, Maryland.

To get started looking at music, proceed to the Church Singer's Companion and begin familiarizing yourself with the content. You'll find there are a few more challenging settings mixed in, marked “difficult” or “very difficult”. Audio or video examples accompany some of the music. In addition, the Introduction provides valuable advice about proper church singing and related topics.

Detailed Reviews and Endorsements by clergy and choral professionals are provided for your consideration.