Assumption Greek Orthodox Church of Galveston

History

Eastern Orthodox Christian life in Galveston traces its origins to 1862, when Greek, Russian, and Serbian immigrants formed the first Orthodox community in what was then one of the most important port cities in the American South. For decades these communities worshipped together, the Greeks among them joining their fellow Orthodox Christians at the Sts. Constantine and Helen Church on Avenue L. In 1914, the local Hellenic Society established what remains the only exclusively Greek Orthodox church cemetery in Texas, a parcel later expanded in 1936, its wrought iron gate on Avenue T still bearing an arch inscribed with the words Greek Orthodox.

In April 1933, the Greek community held its first General Assembly to establish its own parish. A purchase was made of the Evangelical Lutheran Church at the northeast corner of 19th Street and Ball Street for $7,500, a sound frame structure in a central location near the courthouse and downtown Galveston. On March 15, 1934, Father D. Zikakis celebrated the first Holy Liturgy in the now all-Greek Orthodox Church. The community threw itself into paying off the mortgage through a succession of fundraising events, introducing Galvestonians to Greek pastry, Greek food, Greek dancing, and Greek entertainment, earning the parishioners an affectionate reputation in the city as the Happy Greeks. The mortgage was retired years ahead of schedule.

In 1963, with the debt cleared and the community's confidence high, a building committee was formed to plan a new church on the same site. The new church building with an Eastern Orthodox interior style was completed in 1964 and has served the parish ever since at 714 19th Street. The Texas Historical Commission honored the Greek Orthodox Cemetery with an official historical marker in 2015, recognizing the community's century of service to the citizens of Galveston and the State of Texas.

The Assumption of the Virgin Mary Greek Orthodox Church at 714 19th Street in Galveston serves the Orthodox Christian faithful of the Texas Gulf Coast as a parish of the Greek Orthodox Metropolis of Denver within the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America, one of the oldest Greek Orthodox communities in the Lone Star State and a living link to the first Orthodox Christians to settle on the island of Galveston more than 160 years ago.