The Sisters from Mary and Martha Monastery in Wagner, SC will be giving our annual Lenten Retreat this year on Saturday, March 23 @ 3:30pm and on Sunday after the Divine Liturgy. The topic is Monasticism in the Orthodox Tradition. All are welcome, invite your friends!

St. Innocent March Newsletter and Calendar

Fr. Barnabas Powell will be presenting two talks on Spiritual Warfare at St. Innocent Orthodox Church. Fr. Barnabas brings a fresh perspective on the timeless teachings of traditional Christianity.

We will have light refreshments after the talks and offer tours of our unique church.

Fr. Barnabas Powell was born and raised in Atlanta, GA. His journey to Orthodoxy came as a result of many years searching for a “lifestyle” that would be truly Christian. After years in Evangelical Protestant ministry and serving in Christian media, both radio and television, he launched Faith Encouraged Ministries to use what he learned in sharing faith through media for the Orthodox Faith. Fr. Barnabas is an author, pastor, podcaster, and teacher committed to offering a credible witness of the timeless Orthodox faith for this culture. His daily devotional - Faith Encouraged Daily - reaches over 5000 people a week. His weekly homilies - Faith Encouraged - have been watched over 150,000 times on You Tube. And his twice a month live call in show - Faith Encouraged LIVE - is one of the most popular shows on Ancient Faith Radio.

The Sisters from Mary and Martha Monastery in Wagner, SC will be giving our annual Lenten Retreat this year on Saturday, March 23 @ 3:30pm and on Sunday after the Divine Liturgy. The topic is Monasticism in the Orthodox Tradition. All are welcome, invite your friends!

There will be a free will offering.

On Saturday, March 16th Priestmonk Seraphim will be visiting us to give a presentation on his work establishing the Mull Monastery, the first Orthodox Monastery in the Celtic Isles of Scotland in a thousand years.

Saturday, March 16th @ 3:30pm, followed by Great Vespers.
There will be a free will offering.

This year we have Archpriest David C. Rucker coming to visit us and speak about having vision in the Christian life.  This retreat will be broken down into three sessions. 

Saturday @ 2 pm: Session I: My Vision for 2021
Saturday @ 4 pm: Session II: The Vision of our Parish

Sunday @ 12:30 pm: Session III: Living out the Vision in our home and parish

All are welcome. BYOB (Bring your own Bible), Pencil/Pen/notebook or paper, and a statement of “Mission” for your life.

More info will be posted as it comes available. This event will be held in person as well as a private link online for those who may need it. 

It is safe to say that there is no living human being in this world who will not suffer. This suffering can come from within our own souls, our bodies, and in the various calamities that one hears about on the news every night. In modern American, culture suffering is often presented as something to be avoided. At the center of the Christian faith we are given the image of the God/Man Jesus Christ, who suffered and died, despite his innocence. Classic Christianity has a unique perspective and approach to suffering and our human response to suffering. How are we to understand human suffering? How can we find grace in the midst of our own personal sufferings?

On Tuesday, October 15th and Tuesday the 22nd at 7 pm Fr. Theophan Buck will be giving an informal talk on the topic of suffering. Fr. Theophan is the priest and pastor of St. Innocent Orthodox Christian Church. He holds an M.Div. from St. Tikhon’s Theological Seminary and is currently enrolled in a master’s program for pastoral care and counseling.

All are welcome.

There will be light sweets and beverages and following the talks, there will be a church tour for those interested.

Our new Catechism cohort started on Sunday, January 21st. If you want to learn about Orthodox teaching, worship, and practice, it's a great place to start.

Check out our virtual church tour by Orthodox 360.

Fr. Theophan and Molly Croft participated in the Small Parish Forum in Toledo, OH. 

We were blessed to have His Grace, Bishop Gerasim, with us for our patronal feast day. We served Vespers with Litya, the Festal Divine Liturgy, and on Sunday we held our 3rd annual Visitors Sunday. 

We were blessed to have Fr. Stephen Muse guide our Lenten Retreat this year. The topic was Suffering Hell for the Sake of Heaven. 

Fr. Stephen Muse, PhD is a bi-vocational priest, serving the Holy Transfiguration Orthodox Church Community while working as a pastoral psychotherapist and marriage and family therapist at the Pastoral Institute in Columbus Georgia. During our Lenten retreat Fr. Stephen plans on exploring the paradoxes of the Orthodox Christian spiritual life.

We were blessed to have Deacon Columba show us how the Eucharistic bread is made at St. Innocent. 

We were blessed to have a visit from our Archbishop, Alexander who served the Great Blessing of the Water on the Eve of Theophany. It was a short visit but very edifying. On the Sunday after Theophany, we Blessed the Ocmulgee at Amerson Waterworks Park. The weather, service, food, and fellowship were fantastic!

On Saturday, January 7th our Subdeacon Columba Croft was ordained to the Holy Diaconate at St. John the Wonderworker Church in Atlanta. Dn. Columba will be our first active deacon since 2010 so we are very thankful. May God grant Dn. Columba and Mat. Molly Many years of service to Christ and His Church! View the Pictures here

Watch it here!

All are Welcome! Click for more info.

Click here for

We had a beautiful Holy Week at St. Innocent. It was truly Heaven on Earth! Check out some of our pictures:

Holy Wednesday

Holy Friday Matins

Holy Friday Decoration of our Lord's tomb and Vespers

Holy Saturday Matins

Holy Saturday Vesperal Liturgy

We were blessed to have a Lenten Retreat with Fr. Stephen Freeman on the second weekend of Lent. Fr. Stephen gave the homily on Sunday and two talks which are linked here.
- God is with us!
- Shame and the Poetic Language of the Liturgy
- The Eucharistic Life of the Cross

Lord God Almighty, Holy King! Look down from heaven and see how the rulers of this age plot to set nation against nation and brother against brother, how all mankind trembles with fear and dread at the present pernicious violence and shiver with despair at the new and most terrible calamities that will likely ensue.

O God of compassion! Have mercy on Your creatures; forgive our sins and lawlessness, by which many sorrows, disasters, and terrors have come upon us. By the grace of the Holy Spirit, gently tend the parched hearts of men, which have become overgrown with the thorns of self-love, jealousy, enmity, and mendacity.

May Your burning love grow in us, and may all quarrels and dissensions, fratricidal conflicts and wars be destroyed by it. May all peoples not only confess peace with their mouths, but love it with all their hearts, courageously laying down the instruments of war, and thoughtfully taking up the instruments of peace, and engaging solely in the work of peace.

Theophany Vigil, the great blessing of the waters, and our blessing of the Ocmulgee River at Amerson River Park. What a beautiful feast.

Click here to listen to Fr. Barnabas' talks!

Click here for pictures.

Click here for a few pictures and the audio for this retreat!

Thank you for all the clothing and shoe donations, a full truckload! We were able to drop them off today at the Rescue Mission of Middle Georgia. Click here (https://www.rescuemissionga.co...) to learn more about what the Rescue Mission of Middle Georgia does in our area. Originally, we intended that these donations go to Macon Outreach but they had no room for our donation so we had to go with our second choice.  Thank you!

Thank You!

Thank you for all of your generous donations, we were able to contribute 270 lbs. of food and $1,400! 

Fr. Theophan celebrates his 12th anniversary of ordination to the priesthood. 

On Sunday's we can now accommodate 40 people in the church and 40 people in the parish hall chapel. 

Signup Sheet for Attending Services!

I am pleased to announce that we are phasing up at St. Innocent! The DOS sent a new directive which allows us to operate at full, socially distanced, capacity. Based on the square footage of our worship space we are able to allow 40 people per service (socially distanced @ 6ft).

You may have noticed news stories of churches where the virus has spread during the reopening, I read three such stories today. There is no way to eliminate the risk of COVID19 as our parish reopens, however, with precautions in place we can do our best to mitigate that risk. We will continue to be vigilant with the protections we have in place. For instance, everyone besides the choir, priest, and altar servers, are asked to wear masks throughout the service. As you enter the church you will be asked to sanitize your hands, sign in, and then find a place for you and your family to stand while maintaining a social distance of 6 feet. We are still not allowed to have a coffee hour, people are expected to leave the church immediately after the service. The parish hall will only be open (the side door) so that people can use the restrooms. We are also cleaning and sanitizing after the services, to the best of our ability. 

In our new phase (Phase 2 Stage 4) we are allowed to resume having the sacraments of Baptism, Chrismations, Weddings, etc. with our limited cohort. Communion will be received as usual, if you have concerns about this you are welcome to receive “bird-style” (head tilted back, open mouth, the priest puts communion in your mouth). Confessions can only be heard in person and socially distanced with masks on. As is typical, Confession can be heard by appointment, or before or after any service. 

It is important to note that there is no pressure anyone to return if they are uncomfortable with doing so or are high-risk. The governor still has a shelter in place order for the high-risk population through mid-June. 

As you sign up to attend the Liturgy, please remember that each person in your family takes up an appointed spot, so sign up for every single person coming to Liturgy. We will continue to offer two Divine Liturgies per week over the few weeks: Thursday 9:00 am, and Sunday 10:00 am. Those who sign up for Liturgy on Sunday are also welcome to come to Matins at 8:45 am. 

We will continue to live-stream the services on YouTube and Facebook. Links to our YouTube Livestream and Zoom Links for virtual coffee hour can be found in the "events" section of Realm. 

On Saturday and Sunday, November 2/3, Archbishop Alexander visited us for his second time. On Sunday he ordained Colin to the Sub-diaconate and awarded a golden cross to Fr. Theophan. The services were beautiful and grace-filled and it was wonderful to fellowship and getting to know our Archbishop. May God grant him many years! A big thank you goes out to the choir, altar servers, bell-ringers, our photographer and all who organized, prepared food, helped clean up.

Mareska wedding!

Check out our virtual church tour by Orthodox 360

You can see all the pictures for Holy Week and Pascha here.

This year on Lazarus Saturday we recieved four new members into the the Orthodox Christian faith.  My God bless our newly illumined! For pictures click here.

On Saturday October 25th 2014 we had our 4th annual Bible and BBQ. Our guest speaker this year was Fr. Barnabas Powell who spoke on "Timeless Wisdom to Tame the Passons." It was a beautiful and informative day!

Our most recent offering to the Pastor's corner of the Monroe County Reporter can be read here.

On Sunday April 20^th we celebrated our Lord’s Resurrection from the Dead!  The Great and Holy Pascha!  You can view pictures of the services and fellowship here.

On Sunday February 16th we celebrated our 10 year anniversary of consecration.  May God bless us with many more fruitful years of spreading God's Kingdom in Macon Georgia.

On Friday December 6, 2013 the Konevets Quartet from St. Petersburg Russia gave a concert at St. Innocent Orthodox Church. The night was a success.  For the first part the Konevets sang Russian Orthdoox Sacred Music and for the second part we heard Russian folk songs. You can watch a few videos of them singing Russian folk songs in the video section of this website.  

On Saturday, October 26th we held our 3rd Annual Bible and BBQ.  The speaker was great, the food was great and this year many people joined us making it a wonderful event. If you would like to listent to Fr. Andrew's talks they are posed below.

The Church in the Bible

The Church After the Bible

Have you taken the time to watch the documentary about our parish?  You can watch it by clicking here!

August 14, 2013 Pastor's Corner in the Monroe County Reporter.You can read this column here or by subscribing to the Monroe County Reporter. The  Pastor's Corner is sponsored by the Monroe County Ministerial Association.

On Holy Saturday before the Vepseral Divine Liturgy we recieved 6 people into the Orthodox faith in the sacrament of Baptism.  May God grant them many fruitful years serving Christ and His Church!

This year on the 6th of April we had our annual Lenten Retreat with Mother Barbara from the Monastery of the Transfiguration in Ellwood City, PA. Her first talk was on "Choices of the Heart" Understanding and choosing spiritual health in the midst of the busyness of life. To listen or to download this talk click here. Her second talk was on "Hospitality of the Heart" Learning to make room in our hearts for others. To listen to or download this talk click here. For pictures of this event go here.

On Wednesday March 27th the Monroe County Ministerial Association visited our parish for a Lenten Vespers.  To see pictures click here.

March 20, 2013 Pastor's Corner column in the Monroe County Reporter. You can read this article here or by subscribing to the Monroe County Reporter http://mymcr.net/.  The Pastor's Corner is sponsored by the Monroe County Ministerial Association. 

On February 23rd the Iconographer Mat. Anna Kalinina visited our parish for a meeting with our Iconography Committee where we discussed the posiblitly of iconographic frescos in our beautiful temple.  Pictures

On Saturday October 21st we held our Second Annual Taste of St. Innocent Bible and BBQ event.  Fr. Patrick Henrey Reardon gave a lecture on the Biblical Doctrine of Salvation. You can listen to his lecture here.

On Saturday September 9th we had our Church School Kickoff pizza party.  For pictures click here.

You can see the pictures for Evan Lee's baptism here.

Is religion a bad word?

On June 13th our parish was blessed to be able to participate in a local food drop in Forsyth, GA.   Our parish served along side of New Providence Baptist Church.  The food drop is sponsored by Circle of Care and the Monroe County Ministerial Association and hosted at Christ United Methodist Church.  Each month up to 10,000 lb's of food is distributed to the needy many of whom are elderly. You can view some pictures here