Saint Theodore of Crowland Orthodox Christian Community

Welcome to the home page of Saint Theodore of Crowland Orthodox Christian Community, serving Grimsby, Cleethorpes and the surrounding villages.

We are a mission-parish belonging to the Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese of the British Isles & Ireland, under the care of our spiritual Father and Metropolitan, Silouan Oner. All of our services are in English, and we follow the Gregorian calendar (New Calendar) in working out our feast days and fast days.

Brief History

Our current mission-parish is seeking to build on the initial missionary work originally undertaken by Father Michael Harry and Khouria Judith, who organised church services within the Grimsby area from around 2011 to 2018. At this time the mission was under the patronage of Saint's Marina & Saint Kenelm. However, from 2018 to 2022, there were no services at Grimsby, and the mission was put on hold.

Services re-commenced in Grimsby/Cleethorpes again in 2022, and to mark this new stage of the mission's development, the parish was placed under the patronage of two new saints: Saint Aidan of Lindisfarne and Saint Maria of Paris. From 2022 till recently, our mission-parish was worshipping out of Saint Matthew's Church of England church in New Waltham, where we were able to hold services on the second Sunday of each month.

The Church of England community at Saint Matthew's and their vicars showed us incredible hospitality and kindness in allowing us to use their beautiful church building for our worship. However, as time passed it became clear that if our mission-parish was to grow, then we would have to find a way to offer more services on a more regular basis, as well as providing the catechumenate and bible study classes. Sadly, Saint Matthew's community were not in a position to offer us any additional days when we could use their church building, and so the search began to find an alternative venue that we could use for more regular and frequent services.

New Home, New Patron

This search brought us into contact with the Reverend Lynne Smith, the vicar of Old Clee Church, and Christ Church, both of which are situated in Cleethorpes. After discussion with the Church of England bishop for Lincoln, the Reverend Lynne was able to offer our community the use of the two above churches to hold our services, so that we are now able to offer regular services on a weekly basis, rather than a monthly basis. Our services now include a weekly Divine Liturgy, vespers, catechesis and confession for Orthodox Christians in the Grimsby/Cleethorpes areas.

To celebrate this new stage of our mission-parish's development and progress, we have again chosen a new saint for the parish, under whose patronage we seek God's blessing for our mission. Our new patron is Saint Theodore of Crowland (please see the webpage on this saint and why we chose him).

Our Vocation: To Live and Preach the Good News

Our vocation as an Orthodox Christian community is to bring the Good News of Jesus Christ to the people of Grimsby/Cleethorpes and its environs, and to do so in a way that is mindful of and sensitive to the various hardships and challenges that people face in this area.

Members of our community are typically those folk who find life's ultimate meaning, the entire reason for their existence, and the pattern for (and the source of) a meaningful and well-lived life, in the person and example of Jesus Christ and the Good News that He preached. As Orthodox Christians, we do not claim to be perfect. We are all broken and sinful people who repent, live, pray, worship, weep, love, laugh, move, and ultimately have our being only in Christ, through the indwelling and action of the Holy Spirit. We have one message we wish to share: we have found Jesus, the Christ, the Son of the Living God, (Mt. 16:16), and the Kingdom whose advent He proclaimed (Mk. 4:17), and these we have found in the community of faith which Christ Himself established, the Holy Orthodox Christian Church.

As individuals and as a community, we seek only to grow closer to Christ in knowledge, love and service, and to do this through participation in the Mysteries of the Church (the Sacraments), immersion in sacred Scripture (especially the Gospels), personal prayer, confession of our sins, embracing the Church's ascetical tradition (especially with regards to fasting), service of others, and seeking to build stable, positive relationships with all people.

Service to Those in Need

As an Orthodox Christian parish, we seek also to share the love of God with all those around us, regardless of creed, through active service within the community in which we live in. We seek to reach out to others not only by what we say, but also in what we do. We aspire to fulfil Christ's commandments by finding practical, concrete ways to serve others in need, especially the poor, the hungry, the homeless, the naked, the lonely, the sick, those struggling with mental health issues and/or addiction, and the marginalised (Mt. 25: 31-45). It is our hope that as our community in Grimsby/Cleethorpes grows, will be able to establish an outreach ministry to offer support to persons struggling with some of the above issues.