Christ the Savior Greek Orthodox Church of Bluff City

History

Christ the Savior Greek Orthodox Church of Bluff City, Tennessee was born from an unprecedented act of Pan-Orthodox unity, the merger of two small communities that had each struggled alone and found strength together. The roots of Orthodox Christian life in the Tri-Cities region of northeast Tennessee reach back to the early 1980s, when the first Greek Orthodox community in the area was established. By the mid-1990s that community had found a permanent home in Bluff City and taken the name Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Church. In 1997, a separate Antiochian Orthodox community, Holy Resurrection Orthodox Church, was established in nearby Johnson City. For several years the two small parishes coexisted, occasionally joining together for special worship services, but each facing the same challenge that confronts many small Orthodox communities in regions far from large Orthodox populations: limited resources, limited membership, and the difficulty of sustaining a full parish life alone.

In the summer of 2013 a solution emerged that had no precedent in American Orthodox history. Holy Trinity had a church building but no priest. Holy Resurrection had a priest but no building. Metropolitan Alexios of Atlanta, overseeing the Greek Orthodox community, and Bishop Antoun, overseeing the Antiochian community, put their heads together and decided that the two communities should be united into one, combining Holy Trinity's building at 150 Elizabeth Ann Circle in Bluff City with Holy Resurrection's pastor, Father Stephen Mathewes. The decision came quickly and surprised parishioners on both sides as well as Father Mathewes himself. On June 23, 2013, the Great Feast of Pentecost, the united community celebrated its first Divine Liturgy under the new name Christ the Savior Greek Orthodox Church, a name chosen to reflect the Pan-Orthodox and evangelical character of what the merged parish aspired to become.

The transition was described by Father Mathewes as something like an arranged marriage, with the first year devoted to learning each other's strengths and customs. Minor liturgical differences between the Greek and Antiochian traditions were navigated with good humor and mutual respect, and the community has grown steadily since, drawing members from Greeneville, Erwin, Jonesborough, Abingdon, Gray, Kingsport, and the Beech Mountain area of North Carolina.

Christ the Savior Greek Orthodox Church at 150 Elizabeth Ann Circle in Bluff City serves as the only Orthodox Christian community in the Tri-Cities region as a parish of the Greek Orthodox Metropolis of Atlanta within the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America, a Pan-Orthodox community witnessing the ancient Christian faith to Southern Appalachia.