Prior to the founding of St. Peter’s parish, several families in Calgary had a strong desire to see an Orthodox parish established in Calgary that used the English language exclusively as its liturgical language. One of these families was the family of Deacon Peter Isaac. Deacon Peter had just recently attended St. Tikhon’s Seminary in South Canaan, Pennsylvania, and he was living with his family in Calgary. Arising from this concern, these few families began to meet in their homes in order to pray together. This led to the expressed desire to form a mission.

In 1990, Holy Martyr Peter the Aleut Orthodox Church was established in Calgary, Alberta, with the blessing of Bishop Seraphim (Storheim) of Ottawa and Archdiocese of Canada, of the Orthodox Church in America (OCA). The first Divine Liturgy in the newly-established community was served by Archpriest Dennis Pihach, who travelled from St. Herman’s Sobor in Edmonton for this purpose. For some time, Archpriest Stephen Keaschuk travelled to Calgary to serve the Divine Liturgy for the nascent mission. When he was unavailable, Deacon Peter led the families in worship as a reader would do. They read the prescribed services for such occasions.

The community grew slowly, and attracted people from a wide variety of backgrounds: Orthodox Christians who had married English-speaking non-Orthodox who were ready to convert to Orthodoxy, lapsed Orthodox who came back to the Faith, Orthodox who wanted to pray and worship in a language that they understood, converts to the Orthodox faith from a variety of backgrounds, and immigrants from traditional Orthodox countries. It became clear that one of the strengths of the parish of St. Peter is its diversity of people. Until this time, services were offered in various places.

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