The British Orthodox Church is a small Orthodox jurisdiction, canonically part of the Coptic Orthodox Patriarchate of Alexandria. Our mission is to the people of the British Isles, and though we are completely Orthodox in our faith and practice we remain British in our ethos and in our appreciation of the Orthodox heritage of these islands.
 
The British Orthodox Church was originally established in 1866 when a Frenchman, Jules Ferrette, was consecrated as a bishop by the Syrian Orthodox Church with the purpose of re-establishing Orthodoxy to the West.
 
Over the years this mission lost touch with its Eastern origins, but in 1994, under the leadership of our present bishop, discussions with the Coptic Orthodox Patriarchate bore fruit and we were reunited with the Oriental Orthodox churches from which we had come. At the feast of Pentecost in 1994, at Saint Mark's Cathedral in Cairo, Abba Seraphim was ordained a Metropolitan by His Holiness Pope Shenouda III, and the British Orthodox Church became a constituent of the Coptic Orthodox Patriarchate. Metropolitan Seraphim is a full member of the Holy Synod of the Coptic Patriarchate.
 
The British Orthodox today comprises parishes and missions throughout the British Isles. All our services are in English and we venerate the Orthodox saints of the British Isles as well as those of the wider Orthodox Church. We use the ancient Liturgy of Saint James as our normal liturgy, together with all the traditional services of the Coptic Orthodox Church, such as the morning and evening Raising of Incense.
 
Although the British Orthodox Church is a small community at present, it is committed to evangelism and wider ministry. Through our church press we publish the 'Glastonbury Review', the only English language journal committed to regular reporting about the activities of the Oriental Orthodox churches and we have also begun to republish some important theological works. Through the internet, we maintain a number of international and ecumenical email discussion groups, as well as promoting the work of the Joint Commission for the Dialogue between the Eastern and Oriental Orthodox Churches through an important website www.orthodoxunity.org.

St Alban and St Athanasius Orthodox Community originated in the interest of a small group of diverse people. Over a number of years several people from an Evangelical and an Anglican church in the area started meeting with the bishop of the British Orthodox Church for a monthly service at Stacklands Retreat Centre, West Kingsdown. They all shared a desire to find out more about the oldest Christian faith.

In 1994 the British Orthodox Church, which had been formed as a missionary Orthodox Church in 1866, was united with the ancient Coptic Orthodox Patriarchate, established through the preaching of St Mark in the first century. The British Orthodox Church has it's own website at http://www.britishorthodox.org. British Orthodox christians seek to live according to the holy tradition of the Orthodox church while remaining British. The British Orthodox Church believes that Orthodox christianity is just another way of speaking of real, complete, historic and true christianity. Nothing added and nothing taken away.

This small group of enquirers soon decided that they all wished to be members of the Orthodox Church and were received into the Church during 1994. They started holding a weekly prayer service on Sundays at St Michael and All Angel's Church of England in Maidstone, thanks to the kindness of the priest Father Paul Gibbons.

After a regular routine of worship had been established for some time the community was able to rent the cemetery chapel at Maidstone Cemetery. This provided a pleasant environment for a number of years and the community was able to start celebrating the Liturgy, or Orthodox communion service, every Sunday. Father Michael Robson increasingly supported the community as priest and in time some of the community were ordained as Readers and Subdeacons.

In March 2002 the British Orthodox Church purchased St Alban's Church, Chatham and began to convert it for use in Orthodox worship. We are all British christians, but we belong to an ancient Church. We worship in English but we use some of the oldest prayers the Church possesses. But we are not a museum, we simply believe that the teachings and way of life preserved from the earliest times still has power to change people's lives. We don't want to create a Church that looks like us, we want to be changed by belonging to the Orthodox Church so that we become more like Christ, whose Church it is.  

We have continued to worship God in the Orthodox Liturgy every Sunday, and have made many friends in the area, some of whom have become committed members of our community. In fact we now have several younger deacons at the altar who share the responsibility of leading our services with dignity and care.

Over the last months we have organised a series of Study Evenings at which we have examined and discussed a variety of spiritual topics such as The Jesus Prayer, and Praying with Icons.

We are about to start distributing leaflets introducing ourselves to the households of the Medway Towns, and we hope that this will allow us to better serve the already Orthodox people in the area, as well as the many people who would like to discover something about Orthodoxy for themselves.

We warmly invite you to come and worship with us, and experience something of the Orthodox Faith for yourselves. If you would like to participate in any of our educational programmes of instruction then please do not hesitate to contact us and we will give you up to date details of our events.

Why not come and visit us...