Orthodox Churches in Gervais, Oregon

Russian Old Believers, who rejected the Russian Orthodox Church's seventeenth-century reforms, settled around Gervais in the 1960s. A 1981 estimate placed the largest concentrations of Oregon's Old Believers in Woodburn, Mount Angel and Gervais. The Harbintsy and Sinziantsy came from Manchuria and Xinjiang via South America; the Turchane came from Turkey. In 1968 and 1969 some twenty-two Turchane families moved to Oregon and built a village between Woodburn and Gervais, named Bethlehem but more often called the Turkish Village.

Oregon's Old Believers were at first priestless and worshiped in prayer halls. In 1984 Timofey Ioakimovich was ordained a priest in Braila, Romania. After his return, a congregation drawn from all three groups built a church on Bethlehem Road in Gervais. A 1997 Associated Press report said life on that road revolved around its churches. The Church of the Holy Ascension describes itself as an Old-Rite church of the Belokrinitskaya Hierarchy. English has become the dominant language of Oregon's Old Believers under thirty.