History

When leaving the Greek island of Icaria, immigrants of the early twentieth century didn't say they were going to America. They said their destination was Verona, a small community on the Allegheny River just east of Pittsburgh that had become so thoroughly identified with Icarian immigrants that it served as the reference point back home.

The Icarian immigrants who settled in the Oakmont-Verona area worked dangerous jobs in the steel mills. Long hours, hard labor, low wages, and no insurance defined their working lives. The community's founding impulse came from tragedy: when one of their own died in a mill accident with no insurance and his widow still in Greece, neighbors came together to see to his burial. Resolved that this would never happen again, the Verona community of Icarians formed a mutual aid society in 1903, officially chartered in 1905 as the Icarian Brotherhood of America, later known as the Pan-Icarian Brotherhood. That core of organized Icarian families formed the foundation on which a church would eventually be built.

Without a local place of worship, the families traveled to the Annunciation in New Kensington or Saint Nicholas Cathedral in Pittsburgh for services. In 1922 the community was officially chartered by the Archdiocese. The first visiting priest, Father John Antarakis, constructed a makeshift altar and celebrated the Divine Liturgy two or three times a year in a rented second floor above the A&P Market on Front Street in Verona. Funds were raised by door-to-door canvassing and a piggy bank passed through the community. A rented house behind Main Street in Verona served as the parish Greek School.

In 1950 a committee of six decided the time had come to build their own church. Through the efforts of William Kratsas, known as Billy Kay, the group negotiated the purchase of a property on Washington Avenue in Oakmont from the Greek Catholic Union of the USA for $14,500. The committee signed the papers in Munhall on June 29, 1950. Billy Kay was appointed the first parish council president, and the community was named Kimisis tis Theotokou, the Dormition of the Theotokos, affectionately known as St. Mary's. By-laws were drafted and approved in 1957.

The community of some sixty families grew quickly. In 1972 the original building was torn down and the present church and social hall were constructed in 1973, built with the skills and labor of parishioners. The annual Greek Food Festival, organized in 1974, grew into a three-day event serving over 10,000 meals and has become one of the most beloved Greek cultural celebrations in the Pittsburgh area. In 1994 the parish purchased the Hunt Marina on the Allegheny River, renovating it into the Riverside Landing banquet facility, which opened in 1996. A chapel dedicated to the Holy Martyrs Raphael, Nicholas, and Irene of Mytilene was added in 2004, enriched with iconography and relics of the three martyrs. A generous bequest of an entire estate from parishioner Elpiniki Kratsa Mortsos in 1988 eventually became the Nativity of the Theotokos Monastery and Saint Elias Retreat Center in Saxonburg, Pennsylvania, a lasting legacy of the Oakmont parish's generosity.

The Dormition of the Theotokos Greek Orthodox Church at 12 Washington Avenue in Oakmont serves the Orthodox Christian faithful of the Allegheny Valley as a parish of the Greek Orthodox Metropolis of Pittsburgh, a community whose roots in Icarian brotherhood and mutual care have shaped every aspect of its life for more than a century.