Concept B — photo panels show where Christos's photographs from Guatemala will go.

Half a million Orthodox Christians in the mountains and on the coast of Guatemala.

Mayan villages in the highlands and plantation towns on the Pacific plain came into the Orthodox Church together. They have 134 churches, six clergy, and almost nothing inside the walls.

Furnish a church See where they are
Huehuetenango Tajumulco Nueva Concepción, Escuintla Guatemala City Petén Pacific Ocean
Highland parishesCoastal parishes

The highlands

Villages above 7,000 feet around Huehuetenango, where the new Orthodox seminary opened in 2024 and the bishop was consecrated before thousands.

The coast

Nueva Concepción and the plantation towns of Escuintla, where Fr. Andrés Girón first brought the Maya into the Church. Work is seasonal, in bananas and coffee.

The road between

Two to four hours each way. Six clergy cover 134 parishes by pickup truck, leaving at five in the morning for a nine o'clock liturgy.

PhotoParishioners arriving on foot or in the bed of a pickup, women with babies on their backs

They followed their bishop into the Church. Now the Church has to follow them.

Fr. Andrés Girón was a parish priest for seventy-eight villages on Guatemala's south coast, a land-reform leader who marched sixteen thousand campesinos to the capital, and a man his people trusted more than any institution. When he entered the Greek Orthodox Church, they entered with him.

That was the blessing. The demand came with it. Today Bishop Osios, the first Guatemalan-born Orthodox bishop, with two priests and three deacons, serves every one of those parishes himself.

134parishes across the highlands and the coast
40baptisms witnessed in a single morning: eight infants, thirty-two adults
20churches to be furnished first, each serving four to six villages

The buildings are still set up for a Catholic Mass. One table stands in for the Holy Table. There are no icons on the walls, no iconostasis, no vestments, no candles. The priest carries the only Gospel book from village to village.

PhotoChurch exterior, cinderblock and tin roof
PhotoThe single table used as Holy Table
PhotoBaptisms, infants and adults together
PhotoThe meal the parish prepares after liturgy

What the churches need

Give one item to one church, or furnish a whole sanctuary. Every gift is designated, and your name can be inscribed on what you give.

Furnish a whole church

$14,650

Everything one parish needs to serve the Divine Liturgy as an Orthodox church, from the iconostasis down to the altar servers' robes. Twenty churches, one per region of four to six villages.

Sponsor a church
  • Iconostasis $5,000
  • Icons for the iconostasis and walls $3,000
  • Priest and deacon vestments $2,500
  • Hanging candles $1,000
  • Chalice, Gospel, crucifix, font, stand, linen, books $2,150
  • Robes for four altar servers $400

For the altar

from $200
  • Altar crucifix $500
  • Chalice and diskos $750
  • Gospel book $200
  • Holy Table linen $300
  • Baptismal font $200
Give an item

For the walls

from $50
  • Icon of Christ, entrance $100
  • Icon of the Theotokos, entrance $100
  • Saint's icon for the wall $50
  • Hanging candle $100
  • Candle stand at the door $100
Give an item

For the people

from $10
  • Liturgy book, Psalter $10
  • Altar server robe $100
  • Reader's stand $150
  • Church utilities, one month $200
  • Solar water heater, clergy house $2,000
Give an item

Or give a little, every month

$1$5$10$20$50$100
Even the poor can give a dollar a month. Gifts are given wholeheartedly, never under pressure.

Six clergy for 134 parishes.

Bishop Osios, two priests, and three deacons drive the highland roads and the coastal plain every week so that villages can baptize their children, receive communion, and confess. Most parishes see a priest once a month.

The plan is twenty priests and twenty deacons, one for each regional parish. A sponsor covers a deacon at $550 a month or a priest at $750 a month, for up to five years while the parishes grow into supporting their own clergy.

Chanters who can teach Byzantine chant, catechists, and pilgrims are needed as well.

Sponsor a priest or deacon
PhotoBishop Osios with the priests and deacons, or the bishop on the road