The opening of the St. Simeon Serbian Orthodox Church near Heritage Point earlier this year was a milestone for members of the church’s congregation.
It’s a big improvement over the 1,300-square-foot former church in Calgary’s Marda Loop area it replaces, with a 6,000 square foot church hall, soccer fields and extra room for cultural events.
For Okotoks resident Ana McFadyen, the church gives members of the Serbian community a place to connect with their culture and the Serbian community.
“When I go there it brings my memories back, and it’s nice to be with your people,” she said.
The new church, located across Dunbow Road from the new Artesia development near Deerfoot Trail, opened this spring.
While most of the church’s congregation lives in Calgary, with most of them in the southwest corner of the city, there are members from Okotoks, High River and the MD of Foothills.
McFadyen said it’s great to have the church closer to Okotoks, instead of a 45-minute drive away.
“I wasn’t able to go there regularly, so now I am,” she said. “It’s very convenient.”
It also gives congregation members the chance to worship in a proper Orthodox church.
“It’s the way it’s supposed to be in the Orthodox church,” said priest Obrad Filipovic. “Our old church was in a house that was adapted to be a church.”
Having a church that looks like a proper Orthodox church is important to the congregation. Filipovic said they would often rent other Orthodox churches for weddings in order to hold them in an orthodox church.
He said they have a number of different groups that operate within the church beyond the congregation, including a women’s circle, a soccer club with more than 100 members, a cultural society, a heritage society and a Sunday school.
“For our community, it means a lot that now all the organizations can operate within the church,” said Filipovic.
The church hall is on the main level of the building and the downstairs includes meetings rooms. On the outside, there are two full-size soccer fields, a parking lot, and additional overflow parking space.
The soccer club boasts more than 100 members on youth and adult teams. This year, he said the schedule for the fields was full. Starting next year, Filipovic said the soccer fields will be opened to the community for one day a week.
The congregation is now looking to make its mark on the foothills community.
Filipovic said they have received a lot of support from the community so far and they are inviting foothills residents to find out more about the church and to attend services
The church’s congregation is asking MD of Foothills council to rename the stretch of 16 Street in front of the church after Serbian scientist Nikola Tesla.
“He was a Serbian and he was the son of a Serbian priest,” said Filipovic.
Tesla invented alternating Current electricity; he discovered radio waves and x-rays.
