Poletown East is home to numerous churches, from the ornate Polish Catholic churches like St. Albertus and St. Stanislaus to the assortment of storefront churches that dot the neighborhood. One vacant church in the neighborhood, however, stands out on the corner of Campau and Hendrie: a small, brick, domed building that looks out of place in a neighborhood where most of the other landmark churches are Gothic or Romanesque.
Most recently, the building was home to Church on the Move, but it was originally the Asbury Methodist Episcopal Church. The Asbury Church Society was organized in 1886, and was housed in a small frame structure at Ferry Avenue and Dubois Street. On the night of Aug. 5, 1889, thieves broke into this building and stole the clock, call-bell and Bible, valued at a combined $38 ($1,384.70 in 2025). In 1896, the church suffered two more clock thefts within three months of each other.
As it entered the 20th century, the congregation set out to build a home for its growing congregation. The cornerstone for this church was laid Aug. 2, 1900. The building was designed by Wells D. Butterfield, whose daughter Emily - whom he often collaborated with on his designs - was Michigan’s first female licensed architect. The lot for the church cost $1,540, and the church itself cost about $7,700 to build (the equivalent of $60,575 and $302,800 in 2025, when adjusted for inflation, respectively.) However, thanks to contributions from a variety of sources, including the Ladies’ Aid Society, the debt was reduced to less than $1,000 ($40,000 in 2025).
The church’s design was praised in the Nov. 19, 1900, edition of the Detroit Free Press for its uniqueness, coziness and simple elegance. The stained-glass windows under the dome were said to “shine out like great fiery eyes” at night. It also stated that the church’s cozy auditorium could seat about 500. The dedication took place in mid-November 1900. There was a storm on the night of the dedication, but the audience was gathered comfortably under the dome as Dr. James H. Potts, editor of the Michigan Christian Advocate, made a dedicatory speech. As part of the morning dedication service, Wells D. Butterfield made an appearance to give a “chalk talk.”
In June 1907, three Polish citizens attempted to buy the church, with intentions to remodel it into a Catholic parish. The deal must have fallen through, however, as the sale was never finalized. However, the Asbury Methodist Episcopal Church was sold to a group of Russian immigrants in 1914, who turned it into the Russian Orthodox All-Saints Church.
On Dec. 16, 1917, the church was visited by the Right Rev. Bishop Aftimios Ofiesh, head of the Syrian Orthodox Church in America. It was his first visit to Detroit, so it was considered an honor for the Russian Orthodox All-Saints Church to host him in the city. The audience enjoyed three “impressive and colorful” sermons, the Detroit Evening Times reported the following day, one in Russian, one in Arabic and one in Syrian. The audiences of his sermons were so inspired, it was decided that Detroit would become the site of a Syrian Orthodox Catholic church. The bishop would go on to become a controversial figure in the Orthodox Church, eventually marrying in 1933, thus ending his career as a bishop. Shortly before his death in 1966, he praised his wife for “saving him from a pit of corruption,” according to orthodoxhistory.org’s summary of his final days.
In 1919, another controversy arose within the congregation. The Russian Civil War saw Tsar Nicholas II deposed and caused a split within the Orthodox church between the “old” and “new” regimes. The Rev. Dmitri Darin, the minister of the Russian Orthodox All-Saints Church at the time, was part of the “old” regime. According to the April 17, 1919, Detroit Free Press, after “wishing to deed $17,000 (about $323,000 in 2025) to the archbishop’s jurisdiction,” he was voted out of the church by the congregation on April 13, 1919, in favor of switching factions. Darin, however, refused to leave and would not give up the church’s funds or bank information. The case went to the Michigan Supreme Court, and led to the arrest of 18 men who allegedly had ties with Bolshevik radicalism. In the Detroit Free Press’s reporting of the events on Nov. 4 of the same year, Darin claimed that he and the church were being targeted by Bolshevik radicals, saying he had been verbally attacked during sermons, the perpetrators yelling out, “The church anyway is a form of bondage,” and, “a bishop is no better than a czar!” A committee of 15 was organized against Darin, with the goal of retaking the church property. They worked to intimidate Darin by waiting outside the church all night on multiple occasions, insisting that they would not leave until he relinquished control. Still, Darin held his ground, and police eventually dissolved the group by issuing restraining orders. The committee insisted that its only intention was to start an independent church, but Darin claimed to have been informed by his agents that, had the committee taken control, it would have removed the crosses from the building and turned it into a bar and dance hall. He bashed the committee, accusing its members of being part of the “Red plot” to end marriage and Christianity in America.
An important note is that all of this took place during America’s first Red Scare, a time when the American public’s fear of Russian immigrants was heightened by the Russian Revolution and Russians’ increasingly violent reputation. Though the factional disagreements within the congregation are well-documented, the extent to which the dissenters were actually part of a nationwide Bolshevik takeover scheme is debatable. The court cases went on for at least two years, and the church’s name was changed again around this time, to the All Saints Russian Orthodox Cathedral.
On Dec. 30, 1928, the Very Rev. Archmandrite Peter Gavriloff, pastor of the All Saints Russian Orthodox Cathedral, was consecrated as pastor of the Russian Detroit diocese of the Russian Orthodox churches. Gavriloff was born in Russia in 1867, and became a priest for the Russian church at age 20. Deterred by the upheaval of the Russian Revolution in 1919, he moved to Serbia, where he lived for two years. He then lived in Jerusalem for a year before coming to America in 1923, where he became pastor of the All Saints Cathedral in Detroit.
In the building’s 37-year lifespan, it had seemed that the only constants were frequent and chaotic changes in the congregations that occupied it. In 1937, however, the Very Rev. Archpriest John J. Chepeleff became the church’s new leader, and he would become a steady presence within the church for many years to come.
Born in Russia in 1880, Chepeleff was ordained as a priest in America in 1908 and served parishes in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Connecticut and New York, before returning to his homeland in 1914 to serve as a chaplain in World War I. He continued to serve in the Russian Orthodox church in Russia after the war, even “administering the massive relief program which President Herbert Hoover set up to help Russians threatened by starvation,” the Detroit Free Press wrote Dec. 18, 1967. It was during this time Chepelef was accused of anti-Communist activity and fled back to America. He served at parishes in New Jersey, New York and New England before arriving in Detroit to lead the All Saints Russian Orthodox Cathedral in 1937, where he served for 25 years.
Chepeleff believed strongly in the power and influence of young people, and he would lead the church to become involved in numerous youth programs, such as the Federated Russian Orthodox clubs. Additionally, he pushed the congregation to modernize, and in 1939, he began broadcasting the church’s sermons on WJR radio. During the 1940s, Chepelef was also heavily involved in the war effort during World War II, encouraging the church’s youth to sell war bonds and stamps, and organizing a successful clothing drive in February 1945 to aid struggling Russians during the war, collecting 73 bags of clothing. He also worked to foster a sense of fellowship between Americans and Russians, speaking at a tribute to the alliance in 1943 and bringing the church choir to sing. In addition, the church ran a technical school in which factory workers were trained for the war effort. In 1953, Chepelef was awarded the Mitre, the highest ranking one can achieve below being a Bishop, as signified by a special head covering.
Continuing his focus on the church youth, he spoke in the Detroit Free Press on July 18, 1960, regarding the third annual festival of the Eastern Orthodox of Greater Detroit that such get-togethers were creating “a new kind of church” in which young Christians are “forgetting their national differences,” He hoped for a day when the Eastern Orthodox Church in America would be unified, ending dissent among factions. Upon his retirement in 1962, Chepelef was honored by the Detroit Free Press for his 54 years of service, one of the longest careers as a Russian Orthodox priest in America. When he died five years later, he had been living on Fleming Street near Conant and 8 Mile, and was buried in St. Tikhon’s Monastery in South Canaan, Pa. His funeral services took place at the All Saints Russian Orthodox Cathedral.
In the 1970s, the All Saints Russian Orthodox Cathedral began to develop a reputation as a church that did not give in easily to adversity. While St. Mary’s Russian Orthodox Cathedral, another similar church on Joseph Campau Street, relocated to a less “rough” part of town than Poletown East, All Saints remained stubbornly rooted to its corner, continuing to illuminate the neighborhood with its “fiery, glowing eyes” at night. Meanwhile, most of its parishioners had relocated to the suburbs, and most mentions of the church were obituaries - Russian-American suburban parishioners who still wanted their funeral services held at All Saints.
A few years later, however, All Saints Russian Orthodox Cathedral made the news for a completely different reason: “Acrobat burglars get stained glass in cathedral dome,” the Detroit Free Press reported June 19, 1979. It was assumed that, either on the evening on June 16 or early on June 17, burglars lifted a stained glass pane near the top of the dome - some 60 feet off the ground and on a steep roof incline - and successfully got away with numerous religious paintings and vessels, as well as $20,000 worth of stained glass (worth around $90,000 in 2025). The theft baffled the church, as no injuries seemed to be caused by the robbery despite its almost cartoonish complexity. Ross Chepelef, the secretary-treasurer and the Very Rev. Archpriest Chepelef’s son, suggested that the poorly lit street and partially hidden belfry could’ve been partially to blame for the robbery, marveling at “how the guy kept from sliding off the roof,” the article continued.
The morning of June 17, 1979, was supposed to have been a festive celebration, as it was the Russian All Saints’ Day and the 65th anniversary of the cathedral’s founding. Despite the mess and lingering disappointment, the usual 90-minute service was still held that Sunday morning. Ross Chepelef stayed positive, saying, “at least we still have our church, and for that we are grateful. Besides, nobody got hurt - not even, apparently, the guy who took the window out of the dome,” he told the Detroit Free Press.
Shortly after the robbery, many of the ethnic churches in the neighborhood - St. Albertus, St. Stanislaus, St. Josephat, St. Hyacinth, Sweetest Heart of Mary and Immaculate Conception - pitched in to raise money for repairs and replacements to the All Saints Russian Orthodox Cathedral.
In 1995, big changes once again swept the little church on the corner. The All Saints Russian Orthodox Cathedral was sold to the Prayer Mission Church, an entirely new congregation and denomination of Christianity moving in. It was likely around this time that the Russian Orthodox cross and dome were removed from the building. Additionally, the parsonage next door was demolished, and the church’s brick was painted. Prayer Mission Church, founded on St. Aubin Street in 1973 by pastor Marguerite Stephens, changed its name to Church on the Move in 2004. The church encouraged its congregation to strive for excellence in every area of life - the physical, mental, emotional and spiritual through prayer, worship, study and tithing. In December 2006, Church on the Move was awarded a certificate of appreciation from Kenneth Copeland Ministries in Ft. Worth, Texas, a big-time national televangelist.
In addition to Sunday services, Church on the Move hosted Bible class on Wednesday evenings, NA/AA group meetings on Saturday afternoons, Men of Excellence meetings every other Saturday, and corporate fasts every fourth Saturday, as well as intercessory prayer and praise.
The last pastor to serve at the church on the corner was Vivian C. West. West believed strongly in the Golden rule of “do unto others as you would have done on to you,” and kept it hung on a plaque inside the church to remind herself and her congregation to treat everyone fairly. She also preached that, while striving for excellence is important, the only success in life that truly matters is how willing one is to serve their fellow people.
Shortly after her death on Aug. 7, 2024, the church closed.