History

In the 1950s, only a handful of Greek families lived permanently on the North Shore of Suffolk County, Long Island. Devoted to their Orthodox faith, they would occasionally rent the San Remo Christian Church of Smithtown to hold services together. In 1956, this small band of faithful gathered at the home of John Raptis in Setauket with an idea that had been forming for some time: it was time to have a building of their own. They formed a Greek club called the Athens Republican Club, and at their first formal meeting at the American Legion Hall in Port Jefferson Village, they elected the first Church Building Committee and began collecting money to establish a treasury. The priest from the San Remo Christian Church, who had hosted their early services, contributed significantly to their cause, helping the community purchase a ninety-by-one-hundred-foot piece of property on Sheep Pasture Road, the very site where the church stands to this day.

The founders who made this dream possible included John Raptis, Demitrios Loizos, Bill Caraftis, Gus Cherouvis, Gus Stamoulis, George Aivaliotis, James Samuel, Theodore Soulopoulos, Alexis Karras, Elias Mazaris, Stamatis Moraitis, Kyriakos Fradelos, Panagiotis Apostolakis, Marika Kratsas, Charles Koutrakos, Evangelos Balafas, Steve Tsarnas, Steve Raptis, George Malahias, Ioannis Poulianos, Elias Poulos, Anthony Poulos, John Politis, Hiraklis Kyriakidis, and John Karatzas. James Samuel served as the first president and Godfather of the church, with John Raptis as vice president, George Malahias as secretary, and Panagiotis Apostolakis as treasurer.

After years of hard work to purchase the land, draft a plan, and build their church, the founders' dream was finally realized on Palm Sunday, April 1959, when the Greek Orthodox Church of the Assumption opened its doors for the first Divine Liturgy under the spiritual leadership of Father Nick Papapetrou. A Greek School was established in the church's basement that same year, with Katherine Papadakos as its first teacher. As regular visitors and summer vacationers to the North Shore increasingly settled permanently in the area, the community grew steadily, and the founders had the foresight to plan for continued expansion. A parish house was built in 1964, and in 1971 the building was extended and a bell tower added. On May 28, 1972, the church was formally consecrated, an occasion celebrated that evening with a gala event at the Colony Hill Hotel Complex.

In 1979, excavation began for a community center to serve the parish's growing needs, with construction starting the following year and much of the work accomplished by the members of the community themselves. By 1985, the Hellenic Community Center was completed, providing space for the educational, cultural, recreational, and entertainment needs of the congregation. In May 1997, the parish broke ground on a traditional Byzantine-style church complex including a Platea, Amphitheater, Arcades, Agora, Courtyard, and Bell Tower, designed to reflect the simplicity rooted in the traditions of the Eastern Orthodox Church and the townscape heritage of Greece.

The Greek Orthodox Church of the Assumption at 430 Sheep Pasture Road in Port Jefferson serves the Orthodox Christian faithful of Long Island's North Shore as a parish of the Direct Archdiocesan District of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America, a community that grew from a handful of devoted families renting space for Sunday services into a parish hundreds of families strong.