History

The Dormition of the Virgin Mary Greek Orthodox Church of Somerville, Massachusetts was established on August 6, 1916, the feast day of the Transfiguration of Christ, by Greek immigrants who had made their way to Somerville in the early years of the twentieth century. Many of those early immigrants came from Asia Minor as a result of the catastrophic persecution of Greek communities under Ottoman and Turkish rule, a wave of displacement that intensified with the Asia Minor Catastrophe of 1922 and the subsequent population exchanges between Greece and Turkey. They found work in the factories and industrial plants that filled the Somerville area, and through hard work and determination they built a community of faith around the church they established on Central Street.

Among the notable connections between the Dormition Church and American history is its link to George Dilboy, a Somerville Greek American who earned the Medal of Honor for his heroism in World War I and who was raised in the Greek community that formed the parish's founding generation.

Through more than a century of parish life the Dormition Church has served as a spiritual and cultural anchor for the Greek Orthodox community of Somerville and the greater Boston area. In 2014, the parish commissioned the monks of Mount Athos in Greece to paint a copy of one of the most venerated icons in the Orthodox Church, bringing a piece of the ancient monastic tradition of the Holy Mountain into the Somerville sanctuary. The parish celebrated its centennial in October 2016 with a gala at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library in Boston and a Hierarchical Divine Liturgy celebrated by Archbishop Demetrios and Metropolitan Methodios, honoring a century of faith, sacrifice, and Hellenic heritage in Somerville.

The Dormition of the Virgin Mary Greek Orthodox Church at 29 Central Street in Somerville serves the Orthodox Christian faithful of the greater Boston area as a parish of the Greek Orthodox Metropolis of Boston within the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America, a community that has been a beacon of the Orthodox faith and proud Hellenic heritage in the City of Somerville for more than a century.