On August 10-11, 2019, Abbot Damascene of the St. Herman of Alaska Monastery in Platina, California, in the capacity of Episcopal Assistant of Missions for the Diocese of Western America, visited the St. Sebastian Mission in Carson City, Nevada, and the St. John the Baptist Mission in Reno. Fr. Damascene was accompanied by two novices from the monastery, Br. Michael and Br. Alexey.

The monastics arrived at the St. John the Baptist Mission in Reno for Vespers on Saturday evening, August 10. The mission chapel is located inside the Orthodox bookstore, which has served as an outreach center for the community for many years. After the service, the mission’s priest, Fr. James Barfield, took the monastics and some of the parishioners out to dinner. This provided a good opportunity for the visitors to get to know some of the newer members of the mission.

On Sunday morning the services were held at the St. Sebastian Mission in Carson City, which, for now, has the same priest and the same people as the Reno mission. The Reno location, as mentioned above, is the outreach center, while the Carson City location is the main place of worship. The latter is a new location, which is still under construction. For the next month or so, the mission community is meeting in a large room in the back of a thrift shop only a few hundred feet from the site of the future church. Soon the community will be able to worship in their new location, dedicated to St. Sebastian of San Francisco and Jackson.

At the service in Carson City on Sunday, Matins was served mostly by Fr. James; Fr. Damascene served part of the time while Fr. James heard Confessions. Divine Liturgy was then celebrated by Fr. Damascene, with Fr. James concelebrating and Br. Alexey and Uroš (a seminarian from Belgrade) serving as acolytes. Fr. Damascene’s sermon was on Christ’s multiplication of the loaves and fishes, drawn from the interpretation of St. John Chrysostom.

As the Liturgy ended, Fr. Damascene spoke to the faithful about how joyful he was to be back at the mission, having known it since its fledgling days. It was an especially happy occasion to be with them as they embark on a new chapter in their history, with a new missionary location in a different city, dedicated to one of America’s greatest apostles. Fr. Damascene spoke of St. Sebastian’s significance for the community gathered that day. This holy Serbian missionary, he said, labored tirelessly to bring the Orthodox Faith to people in America of all nationalities and ethnicities. When he was still a young Reader (the first clerical rank), he first traveled to Alaska, where he helped to evangelize the Tlingit Natives. Upon his ordination to the priesthood, he traveled up and down the West Coast, from Mexico to Canada, gathering the scattered Orthodox immigrants into communities, and at the same time bringing non-Orthodox into the fold. He continued to travel as a missionary throughout his life, crisscrossing the United States and establishing parishes. He had hoped to set up an Orthodox parish in the mining boomtown of Virginia City, Nevada, where a number of Orthodox Christians had settled. When the famed Comstock silver lode was exhausted in 1898, however, most people left the city, including the Orthodox inhabitants, so a church was never built. Now, after more than a century, an Orthodox mission parish dedicated to St. Sebastian is beginning in Carson City, located only sixteen miles southwest of Virginia City. This is a cause of rejoicing: a sign of the growth and spread of the Orthodox Faith to the ends of the world, which was St. Sebastian’s dream. It is a sign, too, of the intercessions of God’s saints in heaven to help His laboring missionaries on earth. Certainly St. Sebastian did not cease his missionary labors when he reposed in the Lord in 1940. Rather, he continues them from heaven, praying for those who spread the Orthodox Faith by starting missions and by evangelizing the unreached.

After the service, an agape meal was served in the thrift shop. In the middle of the meal, Fr. James’s birthday was celebrated with a cake and the singing of “Happy Birthday.” One could palpably sense the love that the parishioners have for Fr. James, who has been selflessly pastoring this flock for many years. After a warm exchange of sentiments, everyone went outside to see Fr. James’s birthday present: a professional barbeque cooker. On being told he could use the cooker either at home or for church events, Fr. James predictably opted for the latter.

Fr. James took Fr. Damascene to see the site of the new church, located a few doors down from the thrift shop. The other Platina brothers and several other parishioners came, as well. The storefront location was quite roomy, with space for both a church and a refectory. Some finish work had already been done, and the parishioners were getting ready to paint the interior.

One of the parishioners, Reader Patrick Wilkes, is one-eighth Native American, from the Coahuiltecan tribe in Nuevo Leon, Mexico. He has worked as a professional photographer for the local Nevada Indian tribes: particularly, the Washoe and Paiute. In speaking with Fr. Damascene about the outreach of the Western American Diocese of the Serbian Orthodox Church to Native Americans, Reader Patrick said that he would arrange a meeting between Fr. Damascene, himself, and a Paiute woman who has a wide knowledgeable of local Native culture. The meeting occurred late Sunday afternoon, and proved very fascinating and fruitful. The Native people of Nevada have seen much in the thousands of years they have inhabited this land, and they have suffered much at the hands of America’s most recent inhabitants. It will be up to the Orthodox to build bridges across the cultural divide in order to touch souls with the love of the God-man Jesus Christ.

This trip to Nevada was a blessed opportunity to witness new pastoral and missionary activities being built on old foundations. It was inspiring to see seasoned Orthodox laypeople who have struggled spiritually for decades, week after week, singing and serving in church, working as missionaries in the bookstore. They were present together with people who had joined the church only a few years, or only a few weeks, previously. It was encouraging to see the old-timers and the newcomers alike showing zeal for our precious Orthodox Faith, and showing that it is indeed a living Faith, one that transforms lives and prepares them for eternity. Through the prayers of St. Sebastian, may our Lord Jesus Christ continue to grant this mission to prosper, unto His glory, and unto the salvation of souls and the furtherance of His Kingdom! Amen!