Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Church of Raleigh

History

The first Greek to settle in Raleigh, North Carolina arrived in the 1890s. Gus Vurnakes, a young immigrant from Greece, found the capital city to be a thriving but segregated town of approximately 13,000 people and opened the California Fruit Stand on Fayetteville Street, becoming an American citizen in 1898. During the first decade of the 1900s other Greek immigrants joined him, nearly all self-employed, settling into Raleigh's business district and forming an incipient Greek American community.

In April 1924, the Greek families of Raleigh held their first services in a loft on South Salisbury Street, with a membership of approximately ten families. The parish established in that year set its purpose clearly: to retain visiting Orthodox clergy, build or acquire a church building, and eventually retain a permanent priest. Through the following decade, visiting clergymen conducted services in rented premises in the vicinity of Salisbury and South Blount Streets in downtown Raleigh, while the Great Depression slowed the collection of building funds. In 1935, Reverend Elias Skipetarey became the first resident priest, and on November 30, 1937, the cornerstone of the new church building was laid in the presence of Archbishop Athenagoras and many American friends including the Governor of North Carolina. The first Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Church building, located in the 200 block of Pearson Street, was completed in April 1938.

Under Reverend George Stefanis, who served from 1942 through 1962, the congregation completed the interior of the Pearson Street church, including a beautifully hand-carved iconostasis. By the 1960s the parish had outgrown that building entirely, and a search for a new site began. Parishioners George and Pota Vallas and Steve Serletis donated land on Leadmine Road and French Drive in northern Raleigh, and between 1974 and 1983 the congregation built an entirely new Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Church complex on that property.

Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Church serves the Orthodox Christian faithful of the greater Raleigh area as a parish of the Greek Orthodox Metropolis of Atlanta within the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America, a community that grew from a handful of immigrant fruit merchants into one of the largest and most active Orthodox Christian parishes in the Carolinas.