History

Holy Cross Saints Constantine and Helen Greek Orthodox Church of Huntsville, Alabama carries a founding story unlike the typical Greek Orthodox parish in the United States. Rather than immigrant communities seeking to preserve their heritage in a new land, this parish was born from the Orthodox Christians associated with the military and America's space program. Huntsville, home to the U.S. Army's Redstone Arsenal and NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center, drew engineers, officers, and civilian employees from across the country, and among them were families of Orthodox faith who found themselves without a local church.

The impetus for establishing a parish came in the early 1960s, when military officers and civilian employees of Redstone Arsenal, Marshall Space Flight Center, and associated engineering firms recognized that their numbers warranted regular Orthodox worship. A few families had been members of Holy Trinity-Holy Cross parish in Birmingham. By 1962 there were enough of the Orthodox faith in Huntsville to warrant monthly services by the priest traveling from Nashville. In September 1964 the Huntsville communicants were formally organized as an Orthodox Mission and a permanent priest was assigned. Two and a half years later, in early 1967, the community received full parish status under the name Greek Orthodox Church of Huntsville.

Ground was broken for the church building on July 11, 1972, and the Byzantine-style edifice was officially opened by Bishop John of Charlotte on February 25, 1973, receiving at that dedication its full name: Holy Cross Saints Constantine and Helen Greek Orthodox Church of Huntsville, Alabama. A parish center providing educational and community facilities was dedicated in 1983, completing the campus. The congregation that gathered in and around the space and defense community of Huntsville grew into one of the most internationally diverse Greek Orthodox parishes in the American South, drawing Orthodox Christians from the Americas, Europe, Africa, Asia, and Australia, alongside the Greek-American families who form the largest single group within the community.

Holy Cross Saints Constantine and Helen Greek Orthodox Church at 3021 University Drive in Huntsville serves the Orthodox Christian faithful of North Alabama as a parish of the Greek Orthodox Metropolis of Atlanta within the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America, a community built not by immigrant Greeks but by the engineers and soldiers who built America's space program, now embarking on construction of a new sanctuary to carry its mission forward for generations to come.