Welcome to the Website of the Orthodox Church of St. John the Russian, located in Ipswich, MA. The Rector of the parish is Fr. Spyridon Schneider.

The Orthodox Church was established by our Lord Jesus Christ through  the Holy Spirit on the great day of Pentecost. The Church, as the holy Apostle says, is "the pillar and ground of the truth" (1 Tim. 1:15) within which our great God and Savior Jesus Christ "hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him that hath called us to glory and virtue: whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises: that by these [we] might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust." (2 Peter 1:3-4)

Filled with the Holy Spirit, the Holy Apostles established local Churches throughout the known world, ordaining and establishing Bishops and Priests in each local Church.  This continues to this day as the Bishops, the successors to the Holy Apostles, in accordance with the command of our Lord to "teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you" (Mt 28:19), continue to establish Churches in lands which have not heard the True Gospel of Christ.

We are a parish of the Orthodox Church of Russia. In the late 10th century the Great Prince Vladimir of Kiev sent emissaries searching throughout the known world for the True Faith. After visting many places and scrutinizing many different faiths these emissaries came to the Imperial City of Constantinople. When they witnessed the Divine Services of the Church they said that they "knew not whether they were in heaven or on earth". After becoming convinced of the truth of the Orthodox Faith, St. Vladimir, along with his subjects, was baptized in the river Dneiper in 988, firmly establishing the Faith of Christ in the Russian land.

Since then, Orthodoxy has come to the American land through missionary work of the Orthodox Church of Russia that began in Alaska in the 18th century, and later spread throughout the continent through missionary work and the immigration of Orthodox Christians from the historically Orthodox nations of the "Old World".