Annunciation Cathedral of San Francisco

History

The Annunciation Greek Orthodox Cathedral of San Francisco traces its origins to June 1921, when a group of parishioners from Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Church, sympathetic to Greek Prime Minister Eleftherios Venizelos, established a second Greek Orthodox community in San Francisco under the name Saint Sophia. Land was acquired at Hayes and Pierce Streets, and on June 26, 1921, His Eminence Metropolitan Meletios Metaxakis laid the cornerstone of the new Cathedral, a moment of particular historical weight: Metaxakis would shortly thereafter be enthroned as Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople. The community chose as its first priest Father Philaretos Ioannides, an accomplished and well-educated clergyman who in 1923 was consecrated as the first Bishop of Chicago and later became Metropolitan of Syros.

The Saint Sophia community grew rapidly and soon required larger facilities. In April 1928, the community acquired the historic Valencia Street Theater, built in 1907 and celebrated as the grandest, most beautiful theater of the West, a venue where Ethel Barrymore, the dancer Nijinsky, and the ballerina Pavlova had all performed, and where the young entertainer George Burns had gotten his start. With seating for 1,700, the theater was converted into Saint Sophia's Greek Orthodox Church, and two gilded domes were added to its exterior. In 1929, history was made at the Cathedral when parishioner Alexandra Apostolides founded the Daughters of Penelope, one of the most significant women's organizations in Greek American life. The Great Depression brought severe hardship, however, and in 1935 the Saint Sophia community declared bankruptcy. The Bank of Italy, later Bank of America, foreclosed on the property. In 1936, the community reorganized under the name United Greek Orthodox Community of San Francisco, the Annunciation, and repurchased the church building for the original auction price of $25,000 largely through the determined efforts of Chris Katon. That same year the building was completely transformed into a unified sanctuary, hall, classrooms, offices, and kitchen. In 1962 the Annunciation was designated the Cathedral for the Diocese of San Francisco, the see of what would become the Greek Orthodox Metropolis of San Francisco.

The Cathedral's story took a dramatic turn on October 17, 1989, when the Loma Prieta earthquake struck the San Francisco Bay Area. The cathedral building was damaged so severely that it posed a danger of collapsing and had to be completely torn down, making the Annunciation the only Greek Orthodox church in America to be destroyed as a direct result of an earthquake. The community decided in 1991 to rebuild on the same site at 245 Valencia Street, and a master plan for a new Cathedral was drawn up modeled on Hagia Eirene in Constantinople, the ancient church built by the Emperor Justinian in the sixth century and the only major church in Constantinople never converted into a mosque. His All Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew broke ground for the new Cathedral during his visit to San Francisco in 1997. A building permit was granted on October 17, 2013, the twenty-fourth anniversary of the Loma Prieta earthquake, and construction on the main sanctuary proceeded.

The Annunciation Greek Orthodox Cathedral at 245 Valencia Street serves the Orthodox Christian faithful of the San Francisco Bay Area as the Cathedral church and seat of the Greek Orthodox Metropolis of San Francisco within the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America, a century-old community whose story of loss, resilience, and rebuilding embodies the endurance of the Orthodox Christian faith on the Pacific Coast.