St. Martin of Tours Orthodox Church Celebrates Patronal Feast

MONTGOMERY, AL — St. Martin of Tours Orthodox Church (ROCOR) has recently become a full-time parish for the faithful in the Montgomery, Alabama, area after being a mission parish since its founding 10 years ago. Since its founding, the parish has experienced immense growth, with multiple baptisms even taking place on the Sunday prior to the Festal Liturgy held on Nov. 24, 2025.

The parish’s patron was chosen by Met. Hilarion of blessed memory, who blessed the foundation of the mission back in 2015. Since then, they have moved throughout many different locations and buildings but are finally firmly established in their new building in Montgomery. 

The Brotherhood of the Holy Elders of Optina from Atlanta took part in the Feast, with Archimandrite John (Townsend) serving the Liturgy. Fr. John is himself the Dean of Georgia, Mississippi, and Alabama, and served the very first Liturgy of the St. Martin of Tours Mission. 

After the Liturgy he gave a talk emphasizing the importance of how the parish has everything that any of the beautiful cathedrals have in the world, and to not feel as though anything is lacking. “And it's really important to realize that, not think somehow that you're any less blessed than the people who are worshipping in that new cathedral [In Romania] or Christ the Savior in Moscow, or Sameva in Tbilisi, or St. Sava's in Serbia. You have everything and are lacking nothing here.” 

He went on to address the importance of the fact that now that the parish is established, it is time to be like Mary and “sit at the feet of the Lord”, and especially to not worry about our petty ideas and opinions. 

“And so, whatever you do, if any petty kinds of things come up, if somebody says a word to offend you, just let it go off. Consider it instead a blessing, because that's what the Lord said… Never, never ever allow it somehow to make you upset or to keep you from the joy that you should have every time you come through these doors.”

He concluded by going on to address the fact that we live in a fallen world, and how important having Church and one another is in these troubling times. We are saved as a community and in order to come into communion with God we must come into communion with those around us. Encouragement was given for prayer for our brothers, sisters, and enemies, as well as to,

“Pray for those who are somehow now accusing us, even though we're completely apolitical… Republicans, Democrats, whatever, even socialists or whatever, we don't care about any of that. That's not our business here. We don't have anything to do with it. And then we're being accused of being perhaps Russian agents. It's just crazy. But, again, that's the world. And that's what it will do. But what we are is brothers and sisters in Christ. And we need one another desperately, completely.”

After a festive celebratory meal, the accompanying brothers gave some talks to the faithful regarding mission work and how important it is, while also clarifying our situation in the United States and the proper approach to such work. One of the brothers started off his talk by mentioning how Orthodoxy in America has mostly been an immigrant Church, and how many Americans may have been attracted to it due to it appearing as exotic. Today, however, it has become clear that “we've shifted from this period in America where Orthodoxy was the immigrant church, and now it is native. So now our focus is on evangelization here. It's no longer that we're being fed from the outside.” 

It was also made clear, however, how we must not fall into our own “ethnic monopoly”, and drown out all other voices whether it be Russians, Greeks, etc. We must always remember where we come from, as God allowed Orthodoxy to come to America the way it did for a reason, and how we cannot forget that as it is “God’s business.” In planting missions, it was said that we must be solid in our faith, however this does not mean that we should start reading heavy theological texts.

“And what this does not mean, and I want to emphasize this, what this does not mean is we have to go find heavy duty theological books… reading the Ladder of Divine Ascent and the Philokalia and making sure we have that down. What we have to do is be familiar with what our prayer books look like. If you have a prayer book, do you know what it looks like? Do you recognize it? Do you open it? If you haven't, this is the time. This is how we become Orthodox as we go to church. The church teaches us how to be Orthodox. When we ourselves become Orthodox, then we know how to tell other people about it.”

Mission work can only be done if Christ is the center, not numbers, logistics, or anything else. The Breastplate of St Patrick was mentioned: Christ before me, Christ behind me, Christ on my right, Christ on my left, Christ is everything. Staying grounded within the present tense and recognizing that Christ is right in front of us is how mission work will get done. He concluded by expanding on the necessity of recognizing that mission work is not about us, but about how Christ took responsibility for our sins on the Cross and reconciled our rejection of God into Himself. 

“The second person of the Trinity took responsibility for us back then. So that the two could be made one in His own flesh. This is what the scriptures tell us. To reconcile that which was split. That we had split, that we had divided. We said, we'll be like God. We'll have it on our own terms, thank you very much. God said, no. Don't be alone. He reconciled it in Himself. This is why we have missions at all. Because it's not just us. It's not just our thing. It's not now our own ethnicity or whatever it may be. Our own culture. Our own thing. Everything is Christ, if we remember He Who Is.”

After the talks were concluded, Fr. Elias Crowder thanked everyone for attending the patronal feast day and encouraged the faithful to follow in the footsteps of their patron. St. Martin of Tours was very well known for his almsgiving, and as a part of the Nativity Fast, the parish has started a bake sale in order to gather up resources to help those in need. 

A blessed feast for St. Martin of Tours Orthodox Church in Alabama. St. Martin, pray to God for us!

Previously, UOJ reported that Met. Nicholas of ROCOR celebrated Joy of All Who Sorrow Orthodox Church's feast day in Metro Atlanta.