History

Archangel Michael Greek Orthodox Church of Campbell, Ohio is one of the most distinctive Greek Orthodox parishes in the Mahoning Valley, its congregation shaped in large part by immigrants from the Aegean island of Kalymnos who found in this small industrial city outside Youngstown both a livelihood and a community of faith.

The roots of the parish reach back to an unlikely beginning. On August 6, 1937, a group of women headed by Mrs. Mary Spirtos began what many at the time called a ridiculous crusade: collecting twenty-five cents per month from 165 women, month after month, year after year, with the singular goal of one day building a Greek Orthodox church in Campbell. The city already had its Greek residents attending Saint Nicholas Church in Youngstown, but the idea that Campbell deserved its own parish never died. By 1953 those extraordinary women had accumulated $2,300 in the Dollar Bank of Campbell and had purchased a lot of land worth over $1,500, turning quarters into something no one had laughed at for years. That same year, Dr. George Spirtos, Dr. John Thanos, Attorney Gus Kavouklis, and Mr. George Nicola purchased a plot of ground at Porter Avenue and Twelfth Street and began plans for the building. A charter was granted by the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese in 1954.

The naming of the church proved to be the community's great unifying act. The congregation's members, drawn from two distinct groups, Kalymnians who preferred the name Archangel Michael after the famous Panormitis Monastery church on Simi, and others who preferred Saint John the Baptist, reached agreement on the Archangel, a patron to whom no one could object. The Reverend George T. Pappas arrived in November 1955 to offer the first Divine Liturgy, and the church was formally consecrated in 1956 in the building at 401 Twelfth Street where it has remained ever since.

Archangel Michael Greek Orthodox Church at 401 Twelfth Street in Campbell serves the Orthodox Christian faithful of the Mahoning Valley as a parish of the Greek Orthodox Metropolis of Pittsburgh within the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America, its congregation of approximately 600 families one of the largest in the Metropolis and a living tribute to the women who built it quarter by quarter.