Back Issues: Orthodox chapel a spiritual refuge
Local historians weekly "Back Issues" article in the Manawatū Standard. History of the Chapel of the Archangel Michael Orthodox church. After World War 2, a large group of displaced persons from Europe settled in Manawatū, bringing with them their own cultural and religeous beliefs. After the orthodox monastry in Kimbolton Road closed in 1980, the Kopytko family established an orthodox chapel on their property in Palmerston North. The chapel attracted a growing group of parishioners from the Soviet Union, the new Russia, the Balkans and other new independent states from that region. It operated up until 2013, when the house was sold.