Saint Anthony Greek Orthodox Church of Vineland

History

The formation of a Greek Orthodox community in Cumberland County, New Jersey had been uppermost in the hopes and dreams of Greek Orthodox families who settled in the Vineland area for more than seventy years before a church was finally established. The first organized expression of that community was the AHEPA chapter founded in Millville in 1928, with Peter Blackpool as its first president. For decades the Greek Orthodox families of South Jersey sustained their faith and culture through AHEPA and informal gatherings, their dream of a church of their own waiting for the critical mass and determination that would finally bring it to life.

In 1973 the Greek Orthodox community met at the Holy Trinity Russian Orthodox Church on Landis Avenue in Vineland to elect temporary officers and begin the formal process of establishing a parish. The first worship service was held on Sunday, May 5, 1974, at the Vineland YMCA. In September 1974, the Reverend Dr. Demetrios Constantelos was officially appointed by the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese as Interim Pastor, a role he would fill for more than nine years as the community organized and worked toward a permanent home.

That permanent home came through an extraordinary act of generosity. Mrs. Katina Andreadis donated the land on which the church would be built, and the community named the parish Saint Anthony in honor and memory of her son Anthony Argiropoulos. On January 22, 1977, the feast day of Saint Anthony, the Greek Orthodox Church of Saint Anthony celebrated its Name Day and officially opened its doors at 430 West Wheat Road in Vineland, a milestone the community still marks each year as the parish's most important annual celebration. In January 2024, Metropolitan Apostolos of New Jersey visited Saint Anthony's to mark the community's fiftieth anniversary, honoring the faithful whose dedication across half a century had built and sustained a parish where none had existed before.

Saint Anthony Greek Orthodox Church at 430 West Wheat Road in Vineland serves the Orthodox Christian faithful of Cumberland County as a parish of the Greek Orthodox Metropolis of New Jersey within the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America.