Church makes a statement in neighborhood
Contributed by the Holy Ascension Orthodox Church

The Holy Ascension Orthodox Church is being built in the I'On community in Mount Pleasant, S.C. The 50 members plan to start worshipping in the building in two weeks. An artist from California has been invited to paint the icons on the inside walls. Photos by Mimi M. Maddock

Imagine a neighborhood where people can take a pleasant stroll. There is little traffic. Neighbors call out greetings from porches, retirees cruise the avenues in golf carts or on scooters.

As you come up the main street and past the nature sanctuary you can hear bells ringing softly, the Orthodox choir is singing vespers. The hand carved doors of the church are open and warm candlelight flickers inside. You enter and are met with sights you only thought possible in a remote country in the distant past.

Inside, you lean against a marble column. An enormous cast bronze chandelier with hanging glass lamps studded with candles is suspended from the dome illuminating hand painted frescos that cover all the walls.

The neighborhood is I'On in Mount Pleasant, S.C., a community founded and planned by Vince Graham who also gave the land for the church.

A typical street in the I'On community in Mount Pleasant, S.C.

Everything about the building is intended to express the faith of church members, which presently number 50.

The Orthodox Church uses art as a part of its worship. Everything in the church is designed to experience the glory of heaven. The icons are called "windows into Heaven."

The architecture was inspired by Byzantine and medieval Russian examples. The plan is a combination of squares and circles, ancient symbols of earth and heaven,

conneHctoeldy Absyc ae nnsaioven iins ath me ifsosriomn opfa ar icshro osfs .the Orthodox

Church in America under the Archpastoral direction of His

Eminence, DMITRI, Archbishop of Dallas and the South. The

Orthodox Church in America is the autocephalous (self-governing)

Orthodox Church on this continent, whose jurisdiction Canada Mexico under omophor

of His Beatitude, our Metropolitan HERMAN.

Fr. John Parker

Priest-in-Charge

843-881-5010 or frjohn@ocacharleston.org