Holy Apostle James meets in Owasso, Oklahoma in a hilltop chapel on the priest’s property. A large cul-de-sac provides on street parking, but please be considerate of the neighbors.
Archbishop Alypy of Chicago ordained Deacon Mark Gilstrap as a priest in 1996 to serve Tulsa and vicinity. In 1997, Vladyka Alypy blessed a newly founded mission named Holy Apostle James. Our patron, St. James the Brother of the Lord, was one of the Seventy Apostles sent by Christ to preach, was the first Christian bishop of Jerusalem, authored the universal Epistle of St. James, and served the Christian Divine Liturgy in the Temple, as taught to him by Jesus Christ.
In September of 2017, Fr. Mark reposed and the parish was temporarily left without a priest. Through God’s grace, Fr. John Somers was able to travel regularly to minister to the parish, and we continued with reader’s services on weekends and feast days that Fr. John was not present.
In October of 2020, Fr. Mark’s son, Fr. Peter, was ordained to the priesthood and assigned to the parish of St. James. Since that time, our parish has again been able to have full, regular services.
Our Orthodox services trace their beginnings back to the Temple and the Old Testament, and are a treasury of Scripture readings, prayers, hymns, and canons composed by the Saints and pious Christians throughout the ages. Our hymnology is a mixture of English and Slavonic. There is no instrumental accompaniment to the traditional chant of God-given human voices. We follow the Russian Typikon, and the Church Calendar (the Julian or “Old Calendar”).
We commemorate as our Archpastor, the GOC Metropolitan of America, Demetrius.
Why a Russian parish in the GOC?
Firstly, some background:
In 1955 the head of the Greek Old Calendar Church, Archbishop Chrysostomos (I) of Florina, (glorified as Saint Chrysostomos the New on May 29, 2016) reposed in the Lord without consecrating successors.
In 1960 Archbishop Seraphim of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad (ROCA) diocese of Chicago and Detroit co-consecrated as a bishop Archimandrite Akakios, who was selected for this role by 100 Traditional Calendar clergymen in Greece. By this act, the episcopate of the GOC was restored through our Archbishop Seraphim, and the Traditional Russian Church (ROCA).
Archbishop Leonty of Chile later co-consecrated additional bishops, and in 1969 the entire Russian Synod under Blessed Metropolitan Philaret (now Saint Philaret of New York) recognized these ordinations and declared ROCA to be in full communion with the GOC.
Here’s Why:
Like the Russian Church Abroad during the lifetimes of its great hierarchs (including the wonderworker, St. John of Shanghai & San Francisco), the GOC Synod maintains no relations or communion with the local churches which have accepted the calendar innovation, nor with the churches which have any communion with the pan-heresy of Ecumenism, nor with any churches belonging to the World Council of Churches.
In 2007, upon ROCOR’s union with the Moscow Patriarchate, our founder, Fr. Mark, and his ruling bishop, Archbishop Alypy, agreed that the mutually acceptable GOC offered protection for our convert parish from the stormy winds [and agents] of change, while supporting our decades-long heritage of following the Russian Church’s Typicon, practices, and traditions.