History

The Church of the Annunciation of Cranston holds the distinction of being the first Orthodox parish established in the State of Rhode Island. Its story begins in Providence in 1905, when Greek immigrants who had made their way to the capital of the Ocean State came together to organize a community of faith. For fifteen years the growing congregation rented various buildings for worship, sustained by the determination of its founders to maintain the Orthodox faith in their new homeland. In 1920, with 127 families now calling the parish home, the community erected its first church building at 265 Pine Street in Providence, giving Rhode Island's first Greek Orthodox community its first permanent house of worship.

Through the following decades the parish continued to grow, and by the 1960s the congregation had expanded to more than 300 families. The Pine Street church could no longer accommodate the community's needs, and property was acquired at 175 Oaklawn Avenue in Cranston. The official groundbreaking ceremony was held on July 31, 1966, officiated by Archbishop Iakovos and attended by the Mayor of Cranston and the bishops of both the Roman Catholic and Episcopal Churches of Rhode Island. An 18-foot, 23-carat gold-leaf aluminum cross was blessed and elevated onto the new church dome in October 1967, and in March 1968 the first Divine Liturgy was celebrated in the new Cranston church, a milestone that marked the beginning of the parish's second century of life in its suburban home.

From its Providence origins to its present Cranston home, the Annunciation community has grown to more than 600 families spread throughout the greater portion of Rhode Island, making it the largest Greek Orthodox parish in the state. The annual Cranston Greek Festival, the parish's Sunday School, Greek Language School, Philoptochos, GOYA, and the many other ministries and organizations of the community reflect the full institutional life of a parish whose roots reach back to the very first generation of Greek immigrants to Rhode Island.

The Church of the Annunciation at 175 Oaklawn Avenue in Cranston serves the Orthodox Christian faithful of the greater Providence area as a parish of the Greek Orthodox Metropolis of Boston within the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America, the mother church of Greek Orthodoxy in the State of Rhode Island for more than 120 years.