Our Mission & History

 
All are welcome to worship with us without regard to ethnic heritage or ecclesial ascription.

Founded in 2015, the mission parish of Saints Joachim and Anna Ukrainian Catholic Church provides for the spiritual needs of Eastern Christians in the Northern Shenandoah Valley.

On the evening of Wednesday, September 10, 2014, six families met with Fr Robert Hitchens and Fr Petro Zvarych in Bob Wiesner’s living room to explore the possibility of forming a community for Eastern Catholics in the Northern Shenandoah Valley. Then-Metropolitan Stefan Soroka asked Fr Robert to find a spiritual home for this stable yet fledgling community, and after a year of searching, the leadership of Human Life International (HLI) took us in and permitted the use of their chapel. On Saturday, September 12, 2015, the first Divine Liturgy was celebrated and our community, then
known only as “Front Royal Mission,” was born. In February 2017, Metropolitan Stefan officially placed our community under the heavenly patronage of the Holy and Righteous Ancestors of God, Saints Joachim and Anna. After serving the Divine Liturgy for several months in the parking lot of HLI during the Covid pandemic, Divine Providence directed us to purchase our present property on Linden St in Front Royal, a former Protestant church building with worship space and a fellowship hall, as well as nearly two acres of green space. We took possession of the building on November 20, 2020, the eve of the Entrance of the Mother of God into the Temple. Our new temple was solemnly consecrated by Metropolitan Borys Gudziak on June 4, 2023. In the ten years since our founding, we have celebrated nearly 40 baptisms, many chrismations, over a dozen weddings, two funerals, and two minor ordinations.