History

On July 1, 1918, a historic meeting of the Greek Orthodox faithful took place in the town of Canonsburg, Pennsylvania, with eighty-three men gathered for the express purpose of establishing a Greek Orthodox church. The majority of those present had come to southwestern Pennsylvania from the Greek islands of Karpathos, Crete, Rhodes, Patmos, Ikaria, and Samos, and from the mainland region of Epiros, drawn to this corner of Appalachia by the steel and coal industries that defined the region's economy in the early twentieth century. On July 7, 1918, the community elected Michael Kontos as its first president, formed a Parish Council, and on July 25 rented a hall for the first church services, with the Reverend K. Liakopoulos as the first priest to serve the congregation.

On August 23, 1925, the community purchased a church building from the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Community, giving All Saints its first permanent house of worship, one of the most visually striking in the area with its outstanding twin bell towers visible from a distance in the heart of East End Canonsburg where most of the Greek community resided. The iconostasis inside the church was built by a master craftsman from the town of Koskinou on the island of Rhodes, a tangible connection to the island heritage of many founding families. In December 1936, Archbishop Athenagoras came to Canonsburg to dedicate the Grecian Hall, which became the focal point for all parish activities and the home of the Greek School, serving the community for generations.

As the congregation continued to grow and the surrounding area transformed from a steel and coal economy into a high-technology industrial corridor, the parish recognized the need for a new and larger church. Construction began in the early 1990s at the present location at 601 West McMurray Road, fulfilling a long-held parish dream and giving the Canonsburg community the campus it needed to carry its ministry into the twenty-first century. The parish has long distinguished itself through its outreach beyond Washington County, supporting Project Mexico, sending emergency aid to hurricane victims, and even purchasing all church items and covering the expenses for the consecration of an All Saints Orthodox Church in Kazikazi, Tanzania in 2004, a global mission that reflects the parish's conviction that Orthodoxy is a faith for all nations.

All Saints Greek Orthodox Church at 601 West McMurray Road in Canonsburg serves the Orthodox Christian faithful of Washington County as a parish of the Greek Orthodox Metropolis of Pittsburgh within the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America, a community that has outlasted the industries that brought its founders to southwestern Pennsylvania and found in the ancient Orthodox faith a permanence that steel and coal could never provide.