Greenville, South Carolina, March 10, 2026
Photo: Hal Freeman (left), Fr. Stephen Freeman (right)
A lightning strike ignited a fire inside the dome of St. John of the Ladder Orthodox Church (Orthodox Church in America) in Greenville, South Carolina, late Saturday night, March 7.
The strike occurred at approximately 10:48 PM, igniting insulation inside the church’s dome, which began smoldering and burning, reports Malarkey News.
Firefighters were on scene by 11 PM and contained the fire before it could spread further.
Officials say the fire damage is mostly limited to the dome. However, firefighters used a significant amount of water to extinguish the smoldering insulation, leaving considerable water inside the building. According to Fr. Stephen Freeman, the majority of the damage is from the water rather than the fire itself.
The church isn’t currently usable, and church leaders haven’t yet announced a reopening timeline as cleanup and damage assessments continue.
However, despite the seeming setback, the parish maintains a stance of faith and hope. “Far from being discouraged, we see this as a clear opportunity to continue with our mission in the upstate of South Carolina,” the church wrote in a Facebook post yesterday.
Photo: Malarkey News
The post explains that due to the parish’s considerable growth in the past few years, it was already serving three Liturgies on Sunday mornings (including in a side chapel at the Greensville location and at a chapel in Spartansburg). Now, Liturgies will be served in the parish hall, but the church intends to continue with its three Liturgies and normal weekday services.
While worshiping in the parish hall presents challenges to adequately serving the growing parish, and the iconography in the dome will need to be restored, “All this simply underscores the mission of the Church more broadly and St John of the Ladder more particularly: to bring the fullness of the Gospel of Jesus Christ to the Upstate, particularly with beautiful and reverent worship and Christ-centered hospitality for our neighbors,” the church writes.
“We have been working tirelessly to this end already, and we believe God has opened the roof of our building (as in Christ’s encounter with the paralytic, Mark 2.1-12) to galvanize us, our community, and hopefully our wider community, to support this mission with time, talent, and treasure.”
To this end, the church has launched a GoFundMe to help cover the cost of repairs and to fuel further expansion.
As of the time of writing, the fundraiser had already gathered $21,222 of the $30,000 goal.
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