St. John in the Wilderness
Orthodox Sanctuary
-St. John of Damascus
Welcome to Saint John in the Wilderness!
We are located in the majestic Purcell Wilderness Conservancy and are rooted in the practices, worship, and teachings of Jesus Christ and the Early Church.
We are building a Byzantine Stone Chapel, set in the immediacy and beauty of nature, that we feel will be instrumental in anchoring and sustaining the activities and schooling of a small collective of Orthodox craftspersons and students as they mature in the gifts of the spiritual intellect.
Eastern Orthodox theology and its application to the care of God’s creation is central to our community and mission. We hope that this website serves to inspire you to learn more about us!
An Eastern Orthodox Perspective on climate change
The crisis of climate change calls for a spiritual response to enable the profound shift necessary to restore our proper balance with nature. By engaging both humility and asceticism, we can more deeply enter into gratitude for the full beauty of creation. We believe we must take our spiritual lives seriously. Just as the Desert Fathers and Mothers entered into the wilderness in the fourth century, we, too, need to develop our sensibilities to the presence of God in Creation.
This does not happen overnight. It is a journey and there are steps to be taken. It requires persistence and devotion and time spent participating and deepening into the liturgical seasons. We want to provide a place where people can make real steps on the journey towards discovering God in Nature, God in each other, and God in all things.
We hope that St John in the Wilderness can be a place that fosters resilience and serves the healing of ourselves and our Earth.
— Consider that Creation itself can become more anchored towards the stability of infinity, through us and our own transfiguration —
Fr. Nilos - on resilience
“The Orthodox Faith, in its theology and praxis, accesses the discrete intelligibilities of creation. These in turn when enhanced with faith in Christ’s incarnation, can return a person to a more embodied life of gratitude filled with affective knowing. This opens in each one, unseen to the world, the invisible arc of one’s own life coming from creation and returning back into creation but not before receiving God’s word infused into our flesh: a putting on of Christ and becoming luminous seed. Creation becomes incarnation. By understanding this with an eschatological sensibility the person can incorporate joy, expectation, and purpose into the sufferings and struggles of a climate change history thereby providing the resilience needed for weaving humanity forward in harmony with creation.”
FR. NILOS NELLIS has been an Orthodox Priest in Birchdale since 2015 but has had a half-century of intense study and immersion into the mystics and desert Fathers and Mothers of Eastern Christianity since his accidental asceticism in the Hoggar Mountains in southern Algeria when he was 24 years old. In his words, the realization that “Life can be described as Gratitude” anchored his otherwise uncertain quest for freedom and truth. He has been deeply considering questions that don’t have easy answers for many years and has a lot of wisdom and beauty to share with those of us who are willing to listen.
Some of Fr Nil’s more public talks and projects include:
The face of God Film
The Face of God Film was produced by The Orthodox Fellowship of the Transfiguration, written and directed by Fr Kaleeg Hainsworth, and features St John in the Wilderness. It was released world-wide on January 6th, 2021 and is a great way to get a sense of us.
*You can watch a short two minute segment about St. John in the Wilderness (starting from minute 22:30) on The Face of God Film website!
This is “a film about God and nature, faith and climate change and the experience of Orthodox communities around the world facing and experiencing changes in their lives now”… and “is showcasing some of our most important Church voices, highest ranking hierarchs, scientists, politicians, lay leaders, theologians, and communities around the world and gathering the witness of the whole church on the defining issue of our time.”
Suprasl 2024
Suprasl 2024 is another exciting event that Fr Nil has been invited to participate in this summer. He will be a featured speaker at a world gathering of Orthodox Youth held in Poland. The week before the event Fr Nil will be meeting with environmental leaders to discuss faith-based solutions to our current climate crisis.
Healing the Earth: An Eastern Orthodox perspective
Fr Nil was also a featured speaker at the Healing the Earth: An Eastern Orthodox Perspective. This conference was held at the historic Royal Alexandra Hall train museum in Cranbrook, BC in 2016, and was specifically devoted to ecology and climate change concerns.
If you are interested in more details about these events have a look at the Collaborations page.
St. John in the Wilderness wants to take people on a journey that helps them to become the kind of people who delight in being part of the intelligibility of Life and whose Wisdom is Integral to the Beauty that is trying to come forth.
Our altar in the wilderness
St John in the Wilderness Orthodox Sanctuary is the only Eastern Orthodox mission in the West Kootenay region. We serve Liturgy each Sunday at our boat access community. We know that there is a great interest, locally, for the ancient faith of Eastern Orthodoxy but since our location is remote, it can be challenging for people to come and see. We currently have plans to offer outreach liturgical services once a month in Nelson, BC at the beautiful St Saviour’s Anglican Church.
It’s amazing how much has happened over the past few years -Glory to God! – but we are excited about what more is possible with the help of some friends. We thank you so much, in advance, for your heartfelt consideration. You can find out more about our parish on the About Us page.
Architectural drawings by the incredible designer/artisan Andrew Gould.
Beauty will save the world – Fyodor Dostoevsky
co-create with us!
We would love you to consider being part of our journey and helping us in whatever way you are able!
Have a read through the pages on our website to learn more about us and if you’re inspired, please:
prayer to the mother of god
We pray that our efforts to establish a living place of Orthodox Christian worship and schooling in the pristine, natural beauty of the British Columbia wilderness may be abundantly blessed and:
That our hearts may be so open
That the breath of the Holy Spirit
May move through us without barrier.
O you who contained in your womb
He who cannot be contained,
You who nurtured the Nurturer,
Embraced the Embracer,
Loved with your mother’s love
The Lover of all Creation,
Teach us to so open our hearts to Him
That we can bear Him today into our broken world.
Mother, show us your Son, incarnate in
all Creation. You wove Him in your womb;
Weave us into His likeness that all who
meet us may see His face.
-excerpts from the poem “Advent Hymn” from the poetry booklet Because Her Heart Has Opened Wide by M. Sheila (MamaSheShe)
