Parishes - Holy Resurrection Church - Orthodox Church in America

From I-91
Take exit 8. Turn towards Claremont, go 5 miles, across a bridge; turn right on Union St (at traffic light, just over the bridge). Go up Union St 2 blocks to a stop sign, and turn left onto Sullivan St. The Church is on that corner on the left, turn left into parking lot by rectory.

From I-89 (From the east)
Take exit 9 and follow Rte 103 through Newport to Claremont. In Claremont, having passed the shopping centers and Wal-Mart, go over a small bridge and through a light (be in the right lane). Turn right to the traffic “circle”. Go as if diagonally across the circle to the 2nd right turn onto Sullivan St. The Church is on the right at the end of the 3rd block after the Roy Funeral Home.

Schedule of Services

Our worship space is handicap accessible, but our parish hall is not.

6:00 PM Great Vespers or Vigil.
Saturday Evening

9:05 AM Hours. 9:30 AM Divine Liturgy. Sunday School follows during coffee hour (11:45 to 12:15).
Sunday Morning

6:00 PM Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts.
Wednesday & Friday Evenings During Great Lent

9:30 AM Divine Liturgy.
Mornings of Great Feasts

Lesser Feasts are celebrated with Vesperal Liturgy on the eve.

Confessions are heard after Saturday Vespers or by appointment.
Confessions

A midweek Daily Vespers service is held most weeks and especially during fasts. Great Canon of St Andrew of Crete is held during the first and fifth weeks of Lent, and a full schedule of services is celebrated during Holy Week.

For a complete list of upcoming services, please visit the Calendar on the parish website.

Parish Background

The Vermont-New Hampshire area experienced great economic expansion from the 1870’s onward. Claremont, New Hampshire, supplied with ready water power, developed a number of industries during the nineteenth century (paper, cloth, drills, mine and mill machinery) and by 1907 and 1908 attracted immigrants from the area of European Russia between Moscow and Warsaw near the Polish border. In 1909 the Brotherhood of the Holy Resurrection was formed. Between 1909 and 1914 (at which point membership in the Brotherhood had reached 55) frequent visits by priests from nearby Orthodox enclaves allowed Divine Liturgy to be served, and in 1914 a two-story house was purchased and the lower floor converted into a temporary church. A parish independent of the Brotherhood was formed, and membership rose to 120.

During the period of turmoil and instability in the National Church that began in 1917, as many as seven priests served the Claremont Orthodox Community, and by 1921, the parish, financially weakened, united with the Brotherhood. Beginning in 1923, Fr Vasily Amatov remained with the church for seven years, and Archpriest Alexei Dobryansky served from 1930 to 1940.

A church building was constructed in 1941, and the church community grew and prospered, totaling perhaps 172 members including children. At this time, the Council of the Brotherhood was synonymous with the Church Council.

During the 1950s and 1960s attendance at Holy Resurrection Church gradually declined. By the 1970s services were largely in English. By March 1976, when Fr Neal Carrigan and Matushka Sherry came to Claremont, the parish had been without a full-time priest for at least a year. The problems the Church faced stemmed from the 1921 amalgamation of the Parish with the Brotherhood of Holy Resurrection. No priest could successfully serve the parish when the church’s property ownership and finances were vested in the Brotherhood and not in the parish as a whole; and legally Holy Resurrection Church could not be recognized as a Parish of the Orthodox Church in America and could hence have no canonical standing unless it had a Parish Council duly elected. In July 1975, an agreement was reached “to recharter the Russian Brotherhood as the Orthodox Church of the Holy Resurrection of Claremont, New Hampshire, a Member Parish of the Orthodox Church in America.” Dmitri, Bishop of Hartford and New England, confirmed this action on September 12, 1976. But problems remained within the parish.

Fr Neal, after one year of service, was succeeded by Fr Theodore Wasiluk, who carried out substantial repairs to the church property, but, faced with continuing difficulties in the parish, left after only nine months, shortly before Pascha. Fr David Black served the parish during Holy Week and Pascha of 1978, assisted by Deacon Andrew Tregubov, who continued to assist the new priest assigned in May of that year, Fr Mark MacNamara. After Fr Mark left in December, the parish asked Fr Andrew to serve as its priest, and in April 1979, a week before Pascha, newly ordained Fr Andrew and Matushka Galina moved to Claremont.

Over thirty-five years later, the Tregubovs continue to serve the Holy Resurrection Church. The Church has been extensively beautified with theologically rigorous Orthodox art and much fine woodcarving done by Fr Andrew and his son, Timothy. Fr Andrew, himself an iconographer, has contributed a number of icons to the church, as has Matushka Galina, who embroiders icons. The Tregubovs have also given much attention to youth, encouraging and assisting the development of St Catherine’s Summer Camp, for children who were needing to leave the city during the summer, strengthen their faith, and maintain a connection with their ancestral culture as they adjusted to the new ways of American society. Then a training program was undertaken for boys in the church to become servers and readers; a one-week family camp replaced the longer children’s summer camp; and more recently a program of youth retreats, including a Week of Orthodox Service in 1995, has drawn youth from all over the diocese to Claremont. Though th church no longer sponsors Summer camp, our young adults have created a FONT and have become an active part of the parish. In addition, the parish is reaching out to adults through two annual projects: a journal entitled “In our Midst” and a theological institute on various subjects.

In 1996 the parish numbered approximately 80, including a healthy and gradually growing number of converts, two ordained subdeacons, two ordained readers, and a substantial population of children and young adults. Like all the Northern Deanery churches, it is a “commuter” parish, drawing its members not only from the local community but from a radius extending as far as one and a half hours driving time.

By 2007 our membership had remained fairly constant, with some families moving away but new families coming in also.

In 2008 we began a renovation and expansion project to afford our disabled brothers and sisters full handicap accessibility, to beautify and expand the interior of the church, and to update the mechanical systems some of which go back 70 years.

In 2009 we celebrated our centennial, with over 200 people attending festivities over the August 22nd weekend. In 2014 we now have three ordained deacons, two ordained subdeacons, and two ordained readers. May God grant us many years as a fruitful vine in His vineyard!