The Holy Orthodox Church & Saint Sebastian (Dabovich)

What is identified as “The Orthodox Church” today is the original Christian Church established by Jesus Christ, handed down to His Twelve Apostles, and described in the pages of the New Testament. It was one Church until a split separated Orthodox East from Latin West in the eleventh century but the Orthodox Faith and practice has continued unaltered for two thousand years.

In 1794, missionaries introduced Orthodoxy to North America by way of Alaska, and it grew with the increase of immigrants to the United States in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries who came from across Europe, the Mediterranean, and the Middle East. In 1863, Jovan (later named Sebastian when he became a monk) Dabovich was born in San Francisco, the child of Serbian immigrants, and later became the first Orthodox Christian priest born in the United States.

Fr. Sebastian spent most of his adult life as a missionary priest establishing Orthodox Church communities across especially the western United States, including Saint Sava Church in Jackson, CA, in 1894, where his relics are kept. In 1895, he met with Orthodox immigrants in Virginia City (15 miles from Carson City) to establish a church there but when the Comstock silver lode was exhausted in 1898, the population declined sharply and the small Orthodox group most likely moved elsewhere.

The Saint Sebastian Parish Community

On October 16, 2001,  Bishop Jovan of the Serbian Orthodox Diocese of Western America blessed the establishment of the Saint John the Baptist Mission parish in Reno, Nevada. It began as a missionary Orthodox bookstore started by the Saint Herman of Alaska Monastery in Platina, California in 1991. When the monastery was accepted into the Western American Diocese, the Reno community applied soon after.

In 2003, Bishop Longin, at the time the Administrator of the Western Diocese, ordained Fr. James Barfield to serve the community in northwestern Nevada. In 2018, the building used for church services was no longer available, so with the guidance of Bishop Maxim (2006 to present) a chapel was opened within the Reno bookstore and in 2019 the current facility at 1819 N. Carson Street was rented thirty miles south in Carson City, which had no previous Orthodox Church presence. On December 2, 2020, Fr. James Barfield passed away unexpectedly after a brief illness. Over the next twenty months the community was served in several temporary ways, then on August 1, 2022, Bishop Maxim appointed V. Rev. Norman Kosanovich as the full-time priest.

The original missionary outreach of the parish, "Forerunner Bookstore," is open weekdays, located in downtown Reno at 644 Plumas Street; a smaller but well-stocked version of the bookstore exists at the church in Carson City.

Our parishioners represent a variety of nationalities, many are American converts to Orthodox Christianity, and a number of those were introduced to the True Faith through the Forerunner Orthodox Bookstore in Reno. We welcome all who seek "The Way, The Truth, and The Life," our Lord Jesus Christ, together with the Father who is without beginning, and the all-holy, good, and life-creating Spirit: The Holy Trinity, One in essence and undivided!

Visitors and inquirers are invited to our weekly services: Vespers on Saturday evenings, Matins at 9:00 a.m. on Sundays, and Divine Liturgy at 10:00 a.m. on Sundays followed by a fellowship meal; special feast day services and times throughout the year are posted on this site. Inquirer classes on Orthodox Christianity are held throughout the year at 1819 N. Carson Street, and will be posted on our Facebook page (St. Sebastian Serbian Orthodox Mission Parish), this site (stsebastianmission.org), and you can contact Fr. Norman at 775-546-5054, or frnormanccnv@gmail.com.