Protection of the Holy Mother of God (also known as "St. Mary Orthodox Church") is an Orthodox Christian parish in Fairfax County, Virginia, dedicated to the use of English in all of our worship services. We are a congregation in the Romanian Orthodox Episcopate of America (ROEA), an Archdiocese of the Orthodox Church in America (OCA), which received its canonical independence (autocephaly) from the Patriarchate of Moscow in 1970. Our hierarch is His Eminence Archbishop Nathaniel (Popp), who resides at the Episcopate headquarters (affectionately known as the Vatra--Romanian for "hearth") in Grass Lake, Michigan.