Immigration helped fuel the growth of America’s Orthodox churches more than a century ago. Now, it’s conversions from other Christian traditions fueling the growth of Holy Theophany Church in the Springs, whose nearly 300 members will consecrate their new church next Sunday.

Metropolitan Tikhon, patriarch of the Orthodox Church in North America, will preside at the Feb. 9 consecration of St. John the Baptist Orthodox Church, in a fast-growing area near Woodmen and Marksheffel roads.

“This is the fruit of 30 years of the work and the vision of Father Anthony Karbo,” said Karbo’s son-in-law, Father Anthony Machnee, rector of the new church.

Karbo, Holy Theophany’s former rector, was a convert to Orthodoxy from evangelicalism. He studied at Fuller Seminary and worked for Springs-based Young Life before finding his way to a more ancient, traditional, liturgical and mystical faith.

Karbo died in March, but his spirit isn’t far from the local flock.

“He had a real zeal and evangelical spirit about him,” Machnee said. “And when he converted to Orthodoxy, that spirit came along with him. He had a real heart for evangelism.”

Karbo viewed the entire city as his parish and would regularly pray at Garden of the Gods, looking over the city, praying for souls hungry to find a deeper faith, and envisioning the day when growth would require a second local church.

Machnee says those prayers are being answered.

Evangelical converts grow local flock

Nationally, 65% of people who convert to the Orthodox Church in America come from Protestant backgrounds.

But here in a city that’s been called a “Vatican of evangelicalism,” 90% of the members of Holy Theophany and St. John the Baptist came out of evangelical churches.

Reasons for converting vary, including marrying into the faith, or the spirituality of Orthodox liturgy’s beauty, complete with robes, ringing bells, incense smells and beautiful painted icons.

But most locals reportedly converted because of theology.

“There’s a desire for many people to return to something that is grounded, that is ancient, and that isn’t going to be changing its theological presuppositions any time soon,” Machnee said. “We don’t change easily with social or political winds.”

There’s even a joke about this commitment to traditionalism:

Q: How many Orthodox bishops does it take to change a lightbulb?

A: Change?!?!

“Between 2022 and 2024, we baptized 180 people,” said Machnee, a 34-year-old husband and father of four who was raised in the faith, studied at St Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological Seminary and was ordained as a priest in 2022.

More baptisms are on the way as 50 catechumens are studying the Orthodox faith with the intention of joining Holy Theophany and St. John.

Russian roots

The Orthodox Church traces its roots to first-century Christian churches. The New Testament’s book of Revelation was written to seven early churches, and those in the West would later be part of the Catholic Church while those in the East would later be Orthodox.

Unlike other local Orthodox congregations — Archangel Michael Greek Orthodox Church and St. Mary and St. Athanasuis Coptic Orthodox Church — Holy Theophany and St. John the Baptist are part of the Orthodox Church in America, a group that had its beginnings with monks of the Russian Orthodox Church who set up missions in Alaska.

The Orthodox Church in America split from Russia in 1924 after disruptions from the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution. Today the church has an estimated 75,000 members in North America, down from an estimated 85,000 members in 2011.

Orthodox Church in America churches are mostly declining in the Northeast where European immigrants once flourished, but some are growing in the West, with churches in Houston and Salt Lake City launching sister congregations.

The local congregation held its first service in 1974, completing its first temple four years later. Construction of Holy Theophany was completed in 2001.

Construction on the new church began in 2023, and all went well aside from a few hiccups involved in attaching the church’s large round dome to its cross-shaped building.

The Orthodox Church in America offers new churches mission-planting grants, but local members funded the new church. Machnee’s father, who owns a cabinet company, did the interior woodwork.

Most of the church’s walls are pure white, except for an icon of Mary the Mother of God flanked by two archangels, which hovers above the church’s altar. But in time, these white walls will be adorned with additional icons created by a local member who studied the art form in St. Petersburg, Russia.

“Right now, the inside of St. John looks like the inside of Holy Theophany 20 years ago,” Machnee said.

While members miss Father Karbo, his death didn’t lessen the determination to fulfill his vision for a second congregation.

“The Orthodox church has been around for 2,000 years,” Machnee said. “No matter what happens, no matter what is thrown at the church, we will continue.”