History

Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Church of Egg Harbor Township, New Jersey was founded on November 18, 1982, when fifteen families came together with a shared determination to establish a Greek Orthodox community in the mainland area of Atlantic County. The first Divine Liturgy was celebrated in a gymnasium at a Methodist Church in Linwood, New Jersey, a borrowed space that served the young community in its earliest weeks.

The effort moved with remarkable speed. On Palm Sunday 1983, the first Divine Liturgy was celebrated at the newly constructed church in Egg Harbor Township, and Archbishop Iakovos, of blessed memory, presided at the Thyranoixia ceremony, bestowing upon the parish its name, Holy Trinity. Guiding the community through its formative first nine years was Father Demetrios Constantelos, who served as parish priest while simultaneously teaching as a full-time professor at Richard Stockton College. His dual vocation of pastoral care and academic scholarship shaped the character of the young parish, and he is revered to this day as the Pappou, the grandfather, of Holy Trinity.

Through the great sacrifices of time, talent, and treasure made by those early families, the parish grew steadily and paid off the mortgage of its church building. In March 1998 a parish house was constructed on adjacent property, and a small chapel followed. In 2007, the parish celebrated the opening of a new Community Center alongside the Trinity Learning Center, a preschool and kindergarten that has educated generations of children in the Orthodox faith and Greek heritage. In October 2012, the parish purchased a nine-and-a-half-acre parcel of land across the street from the church for festival parking and future youth ministry development. In November 2022, the parish celebrated its fortieth anniversary with a Hierarchical Vespers service presided over by Archbishop Elpidophoros of America.

Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Church at 7004 Ridge Avenue in Egg Harbor Township serves the Orthodox Christian faithful of Atlantic County as a parish of the Greek Orthodox Metropolis of New Jersey within the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America.