History

The church of the Holy Taxiarhai was organized by a handful of Greek Orthodox immigrants in the late 1940s on the northwest side of Chicago, a small community that had difficulty taking an active foothold in its early years. The turning point came in 1951, when a young priest named Father Chrysostomos Economakos was recruited to the parish. In memory of his father's patron saint, Father Economakos asked that the name of Saint Haralambos be added to the church's dedication, and the parish of the Holy Taxiarhai and Saint Haralambos was officially incorporated as a Greek Orthodox church that year. Services were held in a former Protestant church on North Richmond Avenue. Born in Greece, Father Economakos was determined that the children of the parish would learn the language, culture, faith, and heritage of their homeland, and in September 1951 the Aristotle Greek School was founded, a legacy of Hellenic education that has continued for generations.

By 1978, as the parish's membership had shifted northward into the suburbs, Father Athenagoras Aneste worked with Mayor Nicholas Blase of Niles to locate a parcel of land on Caldwell Avenue, giving the community its new home in a village that would become a center of Greek Orthodox life in the northern Chicago suburbs. Though many families had moved to other nearby parishes during the transition years, approximately sixty families committed themselves to making the Niles location the permanent home of Holy Taxiarhai and Saint Haralambos. In August 1982, Father Constantine Botsis was assigned as priest, and under his long pastoral tenure the parish grew from sixty families to more than six hundred, a remarkable expansion that transformed the small migrating community into one of the most vibrant parishes in the Metropolis of Chicago. Groundbreaking for a permanent church building took place in 1987, and the Thyranoixia was celebrated on November 13, 1988, with ongoing furnishing including marble designs, carved woodwork, and magnificent iconography continuing in subsequent years. A new Community Life Center with gymnasium, kitchen, and meeting spaces was officially opened in 2021.

Holy Taxiarhai and Saint Haralambos Greek Orthodox Church at 7373 North Caldwell Avenue in Niles serves the Orthodox Christian faithful of Chicago's northwest suburbs as a parish of the Greek Orthodox Metropolis of Chicago within the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America, its four pillars of Worship, Education, Fellowship, and Philanthropy sustaining a community built from sixty families into one of the most complete Greek Orthodox parish campuses in the Midwest.