Cumming, Georgia, December 22, 2025
Photo: Fr. Barnabas Powell
More than a dozen men, women, and children, were baptized and chrismated into the Orthodox Church at a Greek Orthodox parish in Georgia this weekend.
“Baptizing and chrismating several people tomorrow! Please pray for them,” Fr. Barnabas Powell of the Church of Sts. Raphael, Nicholas, and Irene Greek Orthodox Church in Cumming, GA, posted on Friday.
“Great day receiving so many into the Church,” he posted on Saturday, along with a picture of the newly illumined.
The picture shows one baby, three boys, one girl, two women, and seven men in their white baptismal robes.
Glory to God!
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Photo: stsrni.org
Sts. Raphael, Nicholas and Irene Greek Orthodox Church has experienced substantial growth, with over 130 family stewards and more than 100 children registered for Sunday school. The parish has outgrown its current facilities, which include a small altar accessible only through the men’a bathroom, worship services and fellowship spaces packed to capacity, inadequate parish office and storage areas, and aging infrastructure that is expensive to maintain. These limitations have become increasingly acute as the mission and ministries of the parish have expanded.
The church is now embarking on a building project to develop new facilities on its 16 acres of land in one of the fastest-growing counties in the United States. The new church campus will allow the parish to welcome more people to experience Orthodox Christianity, engage youth in the parish and community, expand ministries focused on the broader community, and accommodate larger events and activities.
The parish envisions creating an outward-focused ministry that serves as a true blessing to the entire county, building what they describe as an “Icon of Paradise” in North Georgia.
The church is actively seeking donations to help make this vision a reality, inviting the faithful to invest in a project that will serve generations to come.
Learn more and donate via the parish website.
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