History

The Greek Orthodox presence in Alaska stretches back to the early eighteenth century, when Greeks accompanied the first Russian Orthodox missionaries into the territory. It was not until the early twentieth century, however, that significant numbers of Greeks arrived in what would become the state of Alaska, most of them employed in the construction of the Alaska Railroad, with a small number remaining afterward at the railroad camp at the head of Cook Inlet that became the city of Anchorage. For years the nearest Orthodox parish for those early Greek settlers was Saint Nicholas Russian Orthodox Church in Eklutna, a village thirty-five miles north of the city.

The Anchorage Greek Orthodox community began in earnest in 1953, when Orthodox families began gathering in the basement of the Chiamis Apartments on Third Avenue between B and C Streets to preserve their traditions and celebrate the feasts of the Church together. In 1958 a small group of Greeks built the first Orthodox church in Anchorage. On January 12, 1959, just nine days after Alaska officially became the forty-ninth state of the Union, Soterios Chiamis, Chris Papademetrios, and Goldie Grames filed with the State of Alaska the Articles of Incorporation for the Greek Orthodox Church of Anchorage, making it the first Greek Orthodox church incorporated in the new state. In August 1959, under the name Greek Orthodox Church of Our Savior, the community was granted an Ecclesiastical Charter from the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of North and South America, and later that year the name was changed to Holy Transfiguration, with the Archdiocese assigning its first resident priest.

The parish's early decades were turbulent. After a series of priests serving from 1959 through 1967, the mission operated with part-time or visiting clergy for a period and the church temporarily closed. The oil boom of the late 1970s and early 1980s brought a new influx of Greek families to Anchorage, and Dr. Alexander Baskous and Tanya Clark led a reorganization effort that identified approximately three hundred Eastern Orthodox families through word of mouth and the telephone directory. The church reopened as a full-time parish in 1983, growing steadily until a sharp decline in the oil market in the late 1980s once again reduced membership. In October 1977, Archbishop Iakovos had traveled to Alaska to bestow his blessings on the small parish, a visit that acknowledged the significance of the northernmost Greek Orthodox community in the Archdiocese.

On October 23, 2005, the Parish General Assembly approved plans for a new church building, and on August 30, 2009, Metropolitan Gerasimos of San Francisco presided at groundbreaking ceremonies, blessing the community's effort to build a permanent sanctuary worthy of the ancient faith.

Holy Transfiguration Greek Orthodox Church in Anchorage serves the Orthodox Christian faithful of Alaska as the northernmost and only Greek Orthodox parish in the state, a parish of the Greek Orthodox Metropolis of San Francisco within the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America, conducting services primarily in English and welcoming Orthodox Christians of many nationalities and backgrounds to worship together at the top of the world.