On This Date in Nativity History

3 June 1997

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On this date, Father Richard Martin became Nativity’s third pastor. 

Father Martin was born in 1939 in Providence, Rhode Island, where he spent most of his early life.  He was ordained to the priesthood in 1966 and served in several parishes in Alexandria and Fairfax, Virginia, and as an active-duty Air Force chaplain from 1977 to 1981.  In 1986 he was named pastor of St. Philip Church in Falls Church, moving to Nativity a decade later.  He was Nativity’s Pastor from 1997 until his sudden death in May 2014.

This historical note is the second of a weekly Bulletin feature leading up to Nativity’s fiftieth anniversary, 11 June 2023.