St Innocent began as a project of the (then) Ohio Deanery and the Diocese of the Midwest under the direction of Fr Basil Stoyka, Dean, and Fr Thomas Mueller, Director of Missions. The founding members came from a variety of cultural and liturgical traditions. However, their one common desire was to worship in the English language and to grow in wisdom and understanding of our Orthodox Faith. Our first services were held in a community room at the Great Northern Mall in North Olmsted, OH. Shortly after that, we moved into a chapel belonging to the Westlake Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). That was to be home for the next ten years.
Several priests served the parish. The assigned priests were Frs Stephen Bobulsky, Thomas Brown, John Zdniak, Elias Khouri, and Michael Butler, our current pastor. Frs Vasilie Hategan, Peter Lipovan, and Radovan Milkovich served the Holy Liturgy for us during interims.
In 1992-1993 we began planning to build or acquire a church of our own. The project was urgent because our hosts needed the space they had been renting to us. We would have to vacate the rented facilities by September, 1995. A problem-laden building project meant that we were unable to meet their deadline, but our hosts were gracious enough to allow us to continue to rent their chapel with the provision that our Sunday worship had to be completed by 9:00 am! We were still able to celebrate the Vigil on Saturday evenings, but we had to celebrate the Divine Liturgy at 7:30 am for the next year or more. Weekday Feasts found us at St Theodosius Cathedral where we were welcomed with open arms and great love.
We will always remember the Feast of the Nativity of our Lord in 1996. The Divine Liturgy on the Eve of the Feast was the first Liturgy we celebrated in our own Orthodox Temple. The building was still incomplete (the windows had not been installed, we had construction plastic over the frames, and the floor was bare concrete) but even the Church of the Holy Wisdom would not have been more beautiful to us that morning. We sang our Thanksgiving with joy.
Our community today consists of about 120 adults and children. Our membership represents a cross section of people of all ages, occupations, and ethnic backgrounds from throughout the greater Cleveland area. We place great emphasis on personal participation in the liturgical and temporal life of the Church, on spiritual growth, and on commitment to Christ and His Teachings. We believe that the Good News of Christ's Church cannot be hidden under a basket but that we must let the Light of Christ shine in us that all men may see and glorify our Father Who is in Heaven.
