Welcome
We offer traditional, liturgical worship to Christians of all denominations -- and to the unchurched who are seeking certainty in our uncertain world. We listen to the advice of St. James. Here you will find no wavering, no "double-minded" thinking, and no fuzzy modern theological sophistry. We proudly continue the teachings of the saints of the Church from the 1st through the 9th Century, the era of the undivided Church.
We take our name from St. John Chrysostom (Bishop of Constantinople, d. 407 A.D., pronounced CHRYS-US-TUM, meaning "Golden Mouth" in Greek), one of the greatest defenders of traditional Christianity. St. Chrysostom was a great preacher, a prolific author, and one of only four men declared a "Doctor of the Church" by both the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches. The "Prayer of St. Chrysostom" has been included in traditional prayer books of the English, Methodist and Presbyterian churches for centuries. The Byzantine Divine Liturgy named in his honor was the source of many of the prayers used in the English books of common prayer.
We believe that the services of the Church should be liturgical, prayerful, worshipful, respectful and joyful (without descending into mere "entertainment"). We sit to listen to Homilies, Old Testament and Epistle readings. We stand to hear the Gospel. We kneel when we pray (those who are unable for medical reasons to kneel may remain seated, leaning slightly forward).
We do not celebrate any single national culture or heritage, nor do we seek a return to some imagined blissful era before the schisms in the Church, especially the Episcopal Church. That era is dead and gone. If you have never been in an Episcopal Church, or don't know what an "Anglican" is, that's fine. In addition to diversity in religious backgrounds, our parishioners come from a wide spectrum of ethnic, educational, social and economic backgrounds. That means we are not a parish of the rich, powerful, and socially influential. The Church, we believe, should be focused solely upon the Eternal Kingdom.
We do not require formal dressing for services, but we do expect that the clothes you wear be clean and dignified. Men should not wear hats in the Church building at any time. Although we come from many backgrounds and conditions of life, both physical and financial, we set aside our backgrounds and individual personalities and come together to worship as one corporate body: the household of God, the church which is the family of God on earth.
We have our own Hymnal, The St. Chrysostom Hymnal, developed within the parish by a committee of clergy and laity and containing songs used by many denominations from the 17th to the early 20th Century. We have also restored to The Hymnal many great hymns which had been used in the Episcopal Church from the 17th through the late 19th Century but were not included in the 1940 Hymnal used my most traditional Anglican parishes. We have also left out many songs which we found impossible to sing and, frankly, too morbid and completely lacking in joyful spirituality. Our committee did not care whether the songs had ever been used in an Episcopal hymnal of any date. They wanted, and they got, about 350 hymns that are theologically-sound and reflect the spirit of a joyful, worshipful church.
To make worship easier for non-Anglicans, we introduced our own large-type edition of our Book of Common Prayer. The Book of Common Prayer-St. Chrysostom Edition, provided free of charge for all parishioners and visitors, includes clear instructions on when to sit, stand, kneel, or respond. It includes the text of all our services (except "In the Cross of Christ I Glory" for Good Friday and our Advent Wreath Ceremony, offered on all four Sundays in Advent). Most are based upon the traditional 1928 Book of Common Prayer, which is the base service for Sundays and Feast Days, except the 4th Sunday, when we follow the form of the 1549 Book of Common Prayer, the first English printed liturgy available to the public in the English language. Special liturgies for certain Feast Days (noted above) are a hybrid of English, Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox forms.
We ask our parishioners to treat each other with respect and love, living as a Christian community in a hostile world. Our guide to behaviour is the advice of St. Paul: to live by the Commandments and teachings of the Church, to love one another, and to live quiet lives minding our own business (1 Thessalonians 4:9-12 NKJV text). We promise to treat visitors and newcomers us as "no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God" (Ephesians 2:19 NKJV).
Explore Our Site
Please take a few minutes to explore our site.
The FAQ page deals with commonly-asked questions about us and about our worship practices.
The About Us page offers brief biographies of our staff.
Visit the Publications page for our locally-produced and printed Christian Education Study books and booklets: Prayers in the Christian Tradition (3rd Edition); The Prayer Book Psalter: History, Text & Commentary; Layman's Lexicon: A Handbook of Scriptural, Liturgical and Theological Terms.
There are also special topic pages: about our namesake, St. John Chrysostom, the Nicene and Apostles' Creeds; News of the Church; the text of Compline; Services/Events.
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