Diocese: Archdiocese of Canada
Deanery: British Columbia Deanery
Address
7221 198B St
Langley, British Columbia V2Y 1R9
Canada
Website: saintherman.net
Office: 604-788-7546
Parish Contacts
Directions
General Location
The parish is located at the corner of 72 Ave and 198 B St in Langley, BC. Call for more specific directions.
From Highway 1
From Highway 1, take the 200 St. (Langley) exit south to 72nd Ave. Turn right (west) one block to the church.
Schedule of Services
Services are in English and the parish follows the New Calendar.
6:30 PM Vespers and Confession
Saturday Evening
9:30 AM Matins and Church School; 10:00 AM Divine Liturgy, meal and catechumen class following.
Sunday Morning
Feast Days as announced
Mornings of Great Feasts
For a complete list of upcoming services, please visit the parish website.
Parish Background
The parish of St Herman of Alaska, Langley BC began as a small mission parish in 1976, when a group of parishioners from the predominately Russian Holy Resurrection parish in Vancouver decided to start an English mission in the lower mainland.
These few faithful, led by Dr Edward and Mrs Vivian Hartley, with the bishop’s blessing, began to hold Reader’s services in their private back-yard chapel. Eventually they found a priest to serve them, Fr Stephen Slipko, then of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. So it happened that the English mission was received into the Ukrainian jurisdiction—even though none of its members were Ukrainian and all its services were in English.
The mission was served by a succession of clergy, some resident, some visiting. By 1986, they were again without a priest. After a year of holding Reader’s services in the back-yard chapel, through the arranging of (then bishop-elect) Fr Seraphim (Storheim), they learned that a seminarian of St Tikhon’s, soon to graduate, was interested in coming to Canada to do English mission work. This priest, Fr Lawrence Farley, came to do some services and to visit in May 1987. The parish decided then to “return home” to the OCA so that Fr Lawrence could be assigned by Metropolitan THEODOSIUS (then locum-tenens for the Archdiocese of Canada, until Fr Seraphim could be consecrated ruling bishop).
The parish, now newly-returned to the OCA, continued to hold services in the Hartley’s backyard chapel as Fr Lawrence served the small mission and worked at a full-time secular job to support his wife, Donna, and their two young daughters. The mission grew in size, eventually outgrowing its original cozy chapel. It found rented quarters for a time in an Anglican church in Surrey, then in a disused United Church in Langley. This facility it also rented, pulling out the pews and installing an iconostas.
At that time the parish had grown enough that Fr Lawrence was able to resign his secular job to work full-time for the parish. It then consisted mostly of young people, students, and young families.
In 2002 the parish purchased its own property in Langley, BC. The former building on this property was renovated and transformed into an Orthodox Church, with small church hall.
Over the course of the next 17 years the community saved funds with the plan of building a proper Orthodox Church building on this same property.
Fr. Gregory Wright joined St Herman of Alaska Orthodox Church community with his family in 2001.
While Fr. Gregory grew up in the Russian Orthodox Church, he desired to find an Orthodox parish in the English Language where his wife and children could understand the Divine Services.
In 2008 Fr. Gregory was ordained to the Holy Diaconate. Over the course of the next 15 years, Fr. Gregory became increasingly involved in the community as its Protodeacon, Treasurer, and manager of the construction of its new church building.
The current church building was completed in 2023.
Fr. Gregory was ordained to the Holy Priesthood on Dec 1, 2024. He has since served as acting rector of the community.
The parish continues to grow in its mission of preaching the Gospel in the English language to those searching for Christ and His Church in the Greater Vancouver area.
