Holy Dormition Parish is blessed with a small, but actively participating and sincerely friendly body of faithful believers. Its total active membership of nearly 150 persons spans equal numbers of all age groups, and embraces many cultural and ethnic backgrounds. The parish conducts a regular and traditional cycle of Orthodox liturgical worship throughout the course of the year. Church School cla
sses for children meet twice each month from September through May. Choir rehearsals are conducted as announced. General parish religious education sessions are conducted seasonally, following the Divine Liturgy. The parish council meets regularly ten times a year, under the guidance of the parish rector to maintain and promote the wholesomeness, stability and well-being of the parish. Each Sunday Divine Liturgy is followed by a time of pleasant fellowship and hospitality, as an expression of Eucharistic unity. Once each month the parish serves a buffet brunch, which the benefits the parish materially and morally. These social gatherings help bring people together and foster good will among them, as members of the Body of Christ. Holy Dormition Parish participates regularly in several community charitable ministries: monthly lunches for inner-city homeless people, grocery collections for a local food pantry, and personal care items collections for a local hospice. All these initiatives are supported by the free-will offerings and volunteer assistance of the parishioners. The parish publishes a quarterly newsletter, which contains a complete schedule of divine services, didactic articles, and news announcements, and regular periodic bulletins. An historical-catechetical journal entitled A Legacy of Faith, was published to mark the parish’s 90th anniversary in 1997, and a biographical brochure about its rector on the occasion of his 25th anniversary of pastoral ministry, in 2001. The Holy Dormition Parish was founded as an initiative of the North American Ecclesiastical Mission established in Alaska in 1794 by Empress Catherine the Great. Initially, the Mission ministered to workers of the Russian-American Fur Trading Company in Alaska, but it was continued by the Holy Synod of the Orthodox Church in Russia to generate an indigenous Orthodox Church in North America. The Mission flourished throughout Alaska and expanded down the North American west coast into California, but waned, as Russian clergy withdrew from the North American Continent after Russia’s sale of Alaska to the United States of America in 1867. The Mission revived in the late 1890’s as Orthodox Slavs from western parts of the Russian and eastern parts of Austro-Hungarian Empires began immigrating into North America through the east coast, seeking better living standards and political security. It was at this time, that the founding members of Cumberland Hill’s Orthodox parish, about eighteen families and some thirty individuals from Galicia and Volhynia Provinces of the Russian Empire settled in Manville, Rhode Island in the early 1900’s. They formed a brotherhood in order to gather and enlist members to start a parish. They purchased land in Manville for an Orthodox cemetery and began collecting funds to build a church. The Cumberland parish was serviced at the start by Archpriest Jacob Grigorieff who travelled for pastoral visits from Salam. MA, until Priest Joseph Dankevich, newly-ordained for the parish by Archbishop Anthony (Khrapovitsky) of Volhynia and Zhitomir, arrived from Russia in December 1907. On July 4, 1907 the community began gathering in private homes for Divine Services, and it was officially chartered in the State of Rhode Island as a Russian Orthodox Church, on November 29 that same year. The community rented an apartment as living quarters for the young Fr. Joseph Dankevich and his family, and as a gathering place for Divine Services. Following the Divine Liturgy on Holy Theophany morning 1908, the apartment and its chapel were badly damaged by a fire of unknown cause. Feeling defeated and despondent at first, the parishioners soon rallied under the encouragement of Archbishop Platon (Rozhdestvensky) and a $500 donation he gave them to realize their desire to build a church. In March 1908 the parishioners began building a church themselves with remnant bricks they were given by the old Manville-Jenks Mill on the Blackstone River, and with other building materials they were able to purchase with an $850 loan they received from a prominent Cumberland Hill resident, John McClaughlin. Construction was completed in August and the church was consecrated on September 3, by Archbishop Platon of the Aleutian Islands and North America, assisted by Archpriests Jacob Grigorieff and Alexander Hotovitsky, Priest Joseph Dankevich and Deacon Alexander Kalneff. After a year of service to the parish, Fr. Dankevich was sent to help establish more mission parishes that were being organized in New York, Pennsylvania and Connecticut. A succession of temporary priests served the Cumberland parish for varying time intervals, until the arrival of Fr. Afanassy Bezsmertnuk in 1935, who served the parish without interruption until 1976.
