History

Holy Cross Greek Orthodox Church of Farmington Hills, Michigan was born in the spring of 1969, when a small group of Greek Orthodox faithful gathered at the Botsford Inn in Farmington Hills to discuss the possibility of establishing a suburban chapel to serve the growing Orthodox population in the western suburbs of Detroit. Articles of Incorporation were signed at a dinner in May, and the first Divine Liturgy was celebrated in July 1969 at John F. Ivory Farms in Commerce Township. On August 15, 1969, Holy Cross incorporated with the State of Michigan as a non-profit corporation. The following month the community of thirty-five families leased a century-old white clapboard church from the Southfield Presbyterian Church at Ten Mile and Lahser Roads, which the faithful affectionately called the Little White Chapel. The Archdiocese designated the fledgling community the Greek Orthodox Southfield Mission.

In January 1970, the General Assembly voted unanimously to purchase the land at the present address on Middlebelt Road, which at the time included a frame home and red barn that served as the parish office and meeting place. That same month the community received its Archdiocesan charter and was officially named Holy Cross Greek Orthodox Church. Groundbreaking for the new church was held on Easter Sunday, May 4, 1975, with Bishop Demetrios officiating. Construction of the school building, where services were conducted in the interim, was completed in February 1977. The first Divine Liturgy in the permanent church was celebrated in September 1983. The iconostasis was installed in 1990, and in 1995 the Platytera and several other major iconographic programs were completed. The marble solea was installed in 2000, and additional iconography and furnishings were added through the following decade.

In September 2023 the parish paid off its church mortgage, celebrating the milestone formally in January 2024, marking the culmination of more than five decades of building, growth, and faithful stewardship. Today, Holy Cross Greek Orthodox Church stands at 25225 Middlebelt Road in Farmington Hills as a parish of the Greek Orthodox Metropolis of Detroit, a community that grew from thirty-five suburban families and a borrowed white chapel into a full and flourishing center of Orthodox Christian life in Oakland County.