About Our Church

Transfiguration Greek Orthodox Church Sioux Falls, SD

Our Mission

As a loving, eurcharistic-centered family rooted in the Orthodox Christian Truth, we live out our faith by serving our neighbors and sharing the Gospel of Jesus Christ. 

Our Vision

Transfiguration Greek Orthodox Church is a healthy and eucharistically-centered Orthodox Christian community, continually committing ourselves to the Christian life through repentance, catechesis, loving hospitality, and service to our neighbors.

Our History

Fathers In Christ

Worship

About Transfiguration

Transfiguration Greek Orthodox Church

Our History

Our church was founded over fifty years ago by Greek Orthodox immigrants. Today we welcome everyone, of whatever ethnicity and religious background, who wishes to embrace and live the Orthodox Christian Faith as it has been preserved from the time of the Apostles until today.

Along with the faithful descendants of our Greek founders, our congregation today includes people from the Russian lands, as well as those of Eritrean/Ethiopian, Ukrainian, Romanian, Serbian, Armenian, Egyptian, Bulgarian, Georgian, and Syrian heritage. We also have many converts to Christian Orthodoxy from American/Western European religious traditions.

The Church is not the property of anyone nation or
ethnic group but includes all who believe rightly.
(Metropolitan Anthony, First Hierarch of
the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad)

Our liturgical language is primarily English since this is the common language that is understood and spoken by our parishioners.

We have a Sunday Church School to instruct our children in the Gospel, knowledge of the Scriptures, and to help them grow in the Orthodox Faith.

A lively group, Knowing and Living our Faith, meets most Wednesday evenings during the Fall and Winter months.

The Philoptochos (“love of the poor”) is one of our Church’s women’s societies. They undertake service projects for the benefit of the poor both within and outside our parish community.

The Order of AHEPA, a men’s philhellenic society, supports our Church’s work through regular, generous financial gifts.

Who We Are

His All Holiness, Bartholomew I

His All Holiness, Bartholomew I
Ecumenical Patriarch and Archbishop of Constantinople

Archbishop Elpidophoros of America

Archbishop Elpidophoros of America
Chairman of the Holy Eparchial Synod
Chairman of the Assembly of Canonical Orthodox Bishops in the United States

His Eminence Metropolitan Constantine of Denver

His Grace Bishop Constantine of Sassima
His Grace Bishop Constantine of Sassima (Moralis) was born in 1966 in Baltimore, Maryland. He is the son of the late Petros (a refugee from Asia Minor born in Athens) and Sarah (of Mobile, Alabama), and is the youngest of three children. From an early age, His Grace served as an acolyte at the Greek Orthodox Cathedral of the Annunciation in Baltimore, MD under the late Fr. Constantine M. Monios of blessed memory, a mentor who encouraged him to pursue ordained ministry. Continue reading

Protopresbyter Peter Smith,Proestamenos / Parish Priest

Fr. Peter Smith | Transfiguration Greek Orthodox Church
Since graduating in 1999, Father Peter has pastored three different parishes in Mississippi, Kansas, and Texas before coming to Transfiguration with Presvytera Collette and their children.

Voice: (605) 334-5301
Email Fr. Peter Here

Read more

Fr. Peter Smith is a native of the central California coast, Fr. Peter Smith attended California State University at Sacramento, where he earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Government (Political Science). It was just after graduation that he and Presvytera Collette converted to Holy Orthodoxy. After working in the insurance field for six years (during which time father was ordained as a deacon) he and Presvytera moved to the Boston area to attend Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology in Brookline, MA. During seminary, Father Peter was ordained to the priesthood (on October 4, 1998 — the commemoration of St. Hierotheos of Athens) and assisted at local parishes while completing his seminary education. Since graduating in1999, Father Peter has pastored three different parishes in Mississippi, Kansas, and Texas before coming to Transfiguration with Presvytera Collette and their children.

You were transfigured upon the mountain O Christ our God, showing to Your disciples Your glory as much as they could bear. Do also in us, sinners though we be, shine Your everlasting Light. At the intercessions of the Theotokos, O Giver of Light, glory to You.

Hymn For The Transfiguration

What does transfiguration mean?

Christ was transfigured, not by the addition of something He was not, nor by a transformation into something He was not, but by the manifestation to His disciples of what He really was.

He opened their eyes so that instead of being blind they could see. While He Himself remained the same, they could now see Him as other than He had appeared to them formerly. For He is ‘the true light’ (Jn 1:9), the beauty of divine glory, and He shone forth like the sun—though this image is imperfect, since what is uncreated cannot be imaged in creation without some diminution.

St. Gregory Palamas,
Archbishop of Thessaloniki

Sermons on the Transfiguration

Transfiguration Icon | Transfiguration Greek Orthodox Church

Schedule of Services

O Come, let us Worship and bow down before our King and God.
O Come, let us worship and bow down before Christ, our King and God.
O Come, let us worship and bow down to Christ Himself, our King and God.

This invitation from the beginning of the vespers service marks the beginning of each day and beautifully expresses the attitude that is at the heart of the Orthodox Christians Faith.
The Worship of God – the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, – is fundamental to the life and spirit of the Orthodox Church.

Sunday: Orthros (Matins – Morning Prayers) 9 AM; Divine Liturgy (Mass) 10 AM
Wednesday: Mid-week Prayers at 6 PM, followed by a time of learning and fellowship.
(Learning & fellowship runs from September through May. We take a break in the summer.)
Saturday: Great Vespers (Evening Prayers) at 5 PM
Confessions are heard after Great Vespers on Saturdays and by special appointment.

Please consult our online parish calendar to see when services are scheduled.

A word about the church calendar

Like most parishes of the Patriarchate of Constantinople, we follow the “new” (Revised Julian) calendar.

This means that we celebrate the non-moveable feasts (such as the Lord’s Nativity) thirteen days before the churches that follow the “old” (Julian) calendar (such as the churches of Russia and Serbia). However, we celebrate Holy Pascha (and the moveable feasts dependent on Pascha, such as Ascension and Pentecost) together with all other Orthodox Christians.