ALL SAINTS ORTHODOX MISSION
LODI, CALIFORNIA
Rector: Priest Elijah
Brief background history of our mission
All Saints Orthodox Mission was started in November 2021 as a ROCOR Western Rite Mission
with the blessing of Metropolitan Hilarion of blessed memory. We started off with 5 baptized
members (my family) and 10 inquirers. We met in a chapel we built in my converted garage in
Stockton, California. At this time almost everything we had as a mission we had to build
ourselves from scratch.
We met in that garage chapel for 9 month. In July 2022, the Lord in His great mercy and love,
provided a store front space for us to rent (at a monthly rental rate one third of the market rate).
The store front was located in Lodi California, so we officially moved All Saints to Lodi, where
we are the first and only Orthodox Church in the city of Lodi (population 60,000+)
In the last year in in Lodi we have seen an
increase of inquirers, and by God’s grace have
made 20 catechumens in the last 2 years, most of
them have been in the last 12 months. In total we
have 17 baptized members (1 recently reposed),
20 catechumens, and over a dozen regular
inquirers.
But beyond the numeral growth, the biggest joy in
our mission is seeing people start their journey of
repentance. Our mission is made up of many
different people from different cultures, religious
backgrounds, and economic backgrounds. We
have many in our mission who were formally homeless (and nomadic) youth. We have seen
catechumens who have come from backgrounds and have renounced being Neo-Nazis, Trans,
Wiccans, occultists, and Thai buddhists. We also baptized a former Roman Catholic Sub-
deacon.
Our rental Space
Before After
Highlights of the Last Year
Some pastorally precious and holy moments for me this past year:
1) Moving out of the garage and into our own rental space.
2) Cooking for and hosting on 20+ people at our home Thursdays evenings for our dinner and
Catechesis time.
3) Seeing a Neo-Nazi burn all his nazi music and paraphernalia.
4) Having a former trans person (who is now a catechumen) tell me after a pilgrimage to
venerate the Iveron Hawaiian Icon, that she feels the Theotokos is helping her to learn to be
a women again (after hating her own femininity for many years and rejecting it to try to
become a “trans man”)
5) Seeing the writings of Saint Saphrony of Essex help a devote Thai Buddhist practitioner
renounce Buddhist and become a catechumen (eventually leading to his whole family
becoming catechumens)
6) Seeing a formally homeless young man in our parish get a steady job, and even start
budgeting and having a bank account and credit for the first time in his life. And also seeing
another young man who was also formerly nomadic and homeless, just get his CDL and
start a career as a truck driver. These two young men have gone on to help 11 of their
friends become catechumens.
The last couple years have not been easy, I was unemployed for 10 months while founding the
mission, and during that time our family lived on food stamps, mortgage deferral, and what
little money I could make selling homemade sourdough from my home.
Now I am employed, and work 40 hour a week (remotely) as a contracted Analytical Linguistic
Project Manager (Contract ends June 2023). This has provided for my family, but has made it
so that I don’t get any days off during the week, so I work 7 days a week without a break
(between my secular work and work at the Mission, averaging 60-80 hour work weeks).
Opportunities And Challenges
Our mission is currently in the process of opening a bookstore and reading room/cafe. The goal
of this is to provide a place for people in our community to be introduced to our parish and to
Orthodoxy in an approachable way. Most people in our city have never heard about Orthodoxy,
and this can serve as a way of introduction for them.
One of our big challenges as a parish is transportation and housing for parishioners. Many of
our parishioners, especially catechumens, are unemployed or underemployed. Although we
have worked hard to help find employment for many of our parishioners in need, the cost of
living in our area is still very expensive, and about 1/3 of our parishioners do not have their own
form of transportation. This makes it hard for everyone to attend services, catechesis, and
pilgrimages. We hope to get a (used) Church Van in future to help with our transportation
needs. We also hope to someday get some land outside of Lodi to build a future Temple, while
in the meanwhile using the land as an Eco Village and Educational Center for Sustainable
farming. This would help provide a home base for prayer and Orthodox community, but also
provide transitional housing for those in need in our community.
Acknowledgment and Gratefulness
I would like to thank Share the Faith for everything they have done to help
and support out mission. I would also like to specially Fr Angelo for all his
words of encouragement and guidance. He has been very helpful in
supporting our recent growth as a mission.
We started this mission with no funding and no financial support. Share
the Faith as been the first outside organization that has stepped up to help
financially support our mission. This financial support from Share the Faith
means so much to us and helps our mission in so many ways. One way it
has helped is that it has helped elevates some of the financial burden for
my family and I and allows us to be able to afford to cook for 20+
catechumens and inquirers every Thursdays. The fruit of this since
receiving funding from Share the Faith has been that we were able to make
9 new catechumens on a single Sunday, bringing our total number of
catechumens to 20. Glory to God!
Being a bi-vocational priest of a new mission is very hard, but the support
from Share the Faith has given me the hope that someday I may be able to
dedicate all my time to serving our parish and not be torn in two directions
needing to work at a full-time secular job while also trying to tend to the
full time needs of our parish.
Here is some more photos of our parish and parishioners. More photos can be found on our
website: https://www.orthodoxlodi.org/2023-lockeford-street
