Changes

In the 1980s, a Roman Catholic "contract priest" by the name of Fr. John Marsh was serving the Roman Catholic community at McGraw Kaserne. Fr. Marsh had a particular love for icons, and at times had arranged for well-known icons to come to the church on post. He then would invite parishes that he thought would be interested to come, and in so doing, had forged very good relations with some of the local Orthodox Churches. The St. Nicholas parish had even been allowed to hold multiple intercessory Liturgies at the church on post. When it became clear that the American forces would be leaving, the parish was certainly interested in buying it, but because the sale was being handled by the Germans rather than the Americans, they didn't feel that they had a chance.

In 1993, a German researcher found Alexander Schmorell's police files while doing research in Moscow. On account of Schmorell's birth in Russia, his file had been sent there, rather than being left in Germany like the files of the other members of the White Rose, and the archive was closed to research until the fall of the Soviet Union. The researcher sent a copy of Schmorell's file to the church, knowing it had been his parish. Since it was almost the 50th anniversary of St. Alexander's execution, an article including some of this new information was written for the Orthodox magazine "Der Bote", which helped garner wider interest.

Because of this added interest surrounding Alexander Schmorell, new life was breathed into discussions of the purchase of the American church on Lincolnstrasse with the German authorities. At least two offers for the church had previously been made by other religious groups who could offer significantly more money, but all had fallen through. Finally, in December 1993 the sale of this church and piece of land was finalized. The church itself lies within sight of the grave of Alexander Schmorell, in the Perlacher Forst cemetery, which is also the location of a mass grave of some 500 Soviet people of that era, both prisoners of war, and forced laborers imported in during the war.