Our History

St. Nicholas Church sketch by Fr. Takahashi

The Beginnings

St. Nicholas Orthodox Church began with a small group of Orthodox Christians who had settled in the Bay Area after years of upheaval and migration. Many had been displaced by the Bolshevik Revolution and its aftermath, traveling through Siberia, Manchuria, and China before reaching the United States. Some had lived in Harbin and later became part of the Orthodox community centered around San Francisco’s Holy Trinity Cathedral, founded in 1868.

After the Golden Gate Bridge opened in 1937, a growing number of families moved north into Marin County. By the early 1950s, they hoped to establish an Orthodox community closer to their new homes. In 1956, Archbishop John (Shahovskoy) blessed a permanent home for St. Nicholas Church in San Anselmo and assigned Fr. Boris Symeonoff (1911–2007) as its first pastor.

A New Generation

Under Fr. Boris’s devoted leadership, the young parish grew and built the present church. After thirty years of ministry, he retired, and Fr. Michael Prokurat became rector.

By then, St. Nicholas was entering a new stage. The founding generation was growing older, while many of their children and grandchildren had only a limited connection with the Church. The parish could no longer depend upon a shared language, culture, or inherited pattern of religious life. Fr. Michael brought a firm theological foundation, experience as an Orthodox Christian raising a family in America, and the courage to teach the unchanging faith in rapidly changing circumstances. By the grace of God, another chapter had begun.

St. Nicholas Today

In 2026, as St. Nicholas celebrates its seventieth anniversary, the parish is more diverse than its founders could have imagined. Some members descend from the original families; others grew up in Orthodox parishes elsewhere in America or came from traditionally Orthodox countries. The community has been enriched by immigrants and refugees from Ukraine, Russia, Belarus, Bulgaria, Georgia, Romania, Greece, the Middle East, and elsewhere. Many others were received into the Church after being formed in Roman Catholic or Protestant traditions, while an increasing number come with little or no previous religious background.

Hardly a week passes without new visitors, many of them young adults searching seriously for faith, stability, and a way of life deeper than the surrounding culture offers. At the same time, a striking number of our catechumens are older adults who come to the Church after decades of experience, questioning, and spiritual searching. Some arrive with a substantial Christian formation; others are encountering historic Christianity for the first time. Their paths are different, but they share a desire for something more demanding and more enduring than a faith remade according to individual preference.

This is especially significant in Marin County, where active religious commitment is no longer assumed and Orthodox Christianity remains unfamiliar to many. Our parish is also more politically, socially, and economically diverse than the surrounding county. That diversity is sometimes challenging, but it is also a great gift: it requires us to discover a unity deeper than background, ideology, ethnicity, or party.

Today’s Mission

Every local church is called to be Orthodox in faith and truly catholic—capable of receiving everyone who sincerely seeks Christ. The mission of St. Nicholas is therefore both simple and demanding: to remain faithful to the Tradition entrusted to us while becoming ever more visible, intelligible, and hospitable to the people around us.

The center of our common life is the worship of God, supported by Christian education for children and adults, catechesis, fellowship, and pastoral care. Our faith must also extend beyond the walls of the church. For many years, St. Nicholas has made its facilities available to Twelve Step groups, with the proceeds directed toward local food programs and shelters. Parishioners collect food and provide direct assistance to neighbors in need. These and other charitable efforts are coordinated through the parish’s ministries of good works and community outreach.

On the Feast of Theophany, January 6, the parish processes through downtown San Anselmo to the creek for the Great Blessing of Water. The procession makes visible our conviction that Christ came not to rescue us from creation, but to bless, heal, and renew it.

The parish has also marked the Feast of the Transfiguration by carrying the Cross, banners, and icons into the hills of Marin, proclaiming the festal hymns and Gospel over the communities of the Bay Area. Such traditions remind us that the beauty we encounter here is neither merely private nor self-sufficient: it is creation awaiting its fulfillment in Christ.

Every parish gathering should renew our awareness that we are called to be the local Body of Christ. That means worship, evangelism, education, hospitality, charity, and the difficult work of learning to love people who may have little else in common. Seventy years after its founding, St. Nicholas is no longer simply a community preserving the memories of an earlier home. It is an Orthodox parish rooted in Marin County, grateful for everything it has received and responsible for handing on the faith—whole, living, and open to all—to the generations still to come.