The Eastern Orthodox Church is the Christian Church that can trace it's faith and practice directly back to the Apostles. While it is a single Faith and single Tradition, it has different cultural expressions. Thus, the Greek Orthodox Church is Eastern Orthodoxy as it flowered and developed in Greece and the surrounding areas. The Russian Orthodox Church is precisely the same Eastern Orthodoxy, but as it developed in Russia. There are also a Serbian, Romanian, Lituanian, etc, expressions of Eastern Orthodoxy. Each is guided by a Bishop and those Bishops are in communion and communication with each other. This communal (or "concilliar") leadership style assures the faithfulness of each expression of Eastern Orthodoxy as well as the faithfulness to Jesus Christ's promise that "where two or three are gathered, I will be in the midst of them."

The Antiochian Orthodox Church, based in Syria and serving a predominantly Arab culture, is one of these cultural expressions of Eastern Orthodoxy. It is also one of the most ancient centers of Christianity. Antioch, north of Jerusalem along the Mediterranean coast, is the place where Jesus' disciples were first called Christians (Acts 11:26). It is also the church that sent out the first missionaries, Paul and Barnabas (Acts 13:2). This is the same church that has remained faithful to Christ since it's founding by early Christians fleeing persecution in Jerusalem shortly after Jesus Christ's death, resurrection, and ascension.

Organizationally, Eastern Orthodoxy in America still reflects the fact that the Orthodox Church was an immigrant Church. Because there was no set leadership in the Americas in the early days of Orthodoxy, Arab immigrants sought leadership from Syria; Greek immigrants sought leadership from Greece; Russian immigrants sought leadership from Russia. As a result, to this day, there are over a dozen different jurisdictions within Orthodoxy in the Americas.

Metropolitan Philip, the leader of the Self-Ruled Antiochian Christian Archdiocese of North America, has been one of the visionary leaders seeking to establish a single Orthodox voice in North America. Increasingly North American Orthodoxy is becoming culturally unified and it is the hope and prayer of Orthodox Christians, no matter their jurisdiction, that soon we will be united as a single jurisdiction, to reflect the single faith we all share.

St. Thomas Orthodox Church, Sioux City

Of course, a glorious history is only a nice curiosity if it is not lived out in today's world. St. Thomas was founded in the early 20th century as a parish to serve the needs of Arab immigrants in Sioux City. Most of those immigrants worked in the meat packing industry. As the meat packing industry shrunk over the years, a number of the faithful of St. Thomas moved, many of them moving to Omaha, where jobs were more plentiful. Eventually those "expatriates" of St. Thomas formed another parish, St. Mary's in Omaha.

But St. Thomas didn't disappear. From it's earliest days its priests recognized that if it were to be faithful to Christ it needed to take on a form that could communicate to the community it was in. As a result, St. Thomas was one of the earliest Antiochian parishes in which the service was done in English rather than Arabic. It also had the first English language choir in the Archdiocese (although records from the period are scarce, and this honor is disputed).

St. Thomas is now a remarkably American parish. There are still a number of Arab families in the parish, but there are just as many non-Arab families. Over the years the missionary zeal has not waned and there are a great number of converts who have come into the parish over the years. When the local Russian Orthodox parish closed its doors several of those families also joined St. Thomas. As a result, the current parish looks like many other Christian congregations demographically. It is therefore a wonderful place to discover the glories of Eastern Orthodoxy because, while its Middle Eastern heritage is celebrated, one does not have to become Middle Eastern in order to understand what's going on.

St. Thomas continues to grow as converts continue discover the glorious riches of Eastern Orthodox faith, life, and worship. You too are welcome to visit us and discover what all the excitement is about.