History

Saint Barbara Greek Orthodox Church traces its origins to 1895, when the first Greeks began arriving in New Haven, Connecticut, according to public records. In those earliest years, with no church of their own, the small community arranged for occasional pastoral visits by Orthodox priests to celebrate the sacraments, gathering at Crown Hall on Crown Street in New Haven and later at the Ukrainian Church and in the parish house of Christ Episcopal Church on Broadway Street. By 1919 the community had grown and organized sufficiently to formally found the Saint Barbara Greek Orthodox Church in the City of New Haven, taking as their patron the Great Martyr Barbara, commemorated on December 4.

Through the following decades the parish built its organizational life, establishing Sunday School, Greek School, a choir, and the youth and cultural programs that would become hallmarks of the community. Young parishioners enlisted in the Armed Forces during World War II, and in the postwar years the parish grew rapidly as Greek-American families spread across the greater New Haven area. By the time the community celebrated its fiftieth anniversary, it comprised 434 families.

As the parish continued to expand, a General Assembly voted to purchase 7.5 acres of land in Orange, Connecticut, for the construction of a new church edifice. Archbishop Iakovos personally celebrated the cornerstone laying ceremony on the Orange church grounds, and the Thyranoixia, or Opening of the Doors ceremony, was celebrated on December 3 by Archbishop Iakovos of North and South America, with the first Divine Liturgy in the new Saint Barbara Greek Orthodox Church in Orange immediately following. The Odyssey Festival, the parish's annual Greek cultural celebration, was held on the new church grounds for the first time that same year, and has grown into one of Connecticut's most beloved Greek festivals, drawing visitors from across the state for four days of Greek food, dance, music, and cultural programming.

The centennial of the Saint Barbara community, marked by the presence of Archbishop Elpidophoros of America, confirmed what the parish's history had long demonstrated: that a community of Greek immigrants who gathered in borrowed spaces in New Haven had built, across a century, one of the most vibrant and comprehensive Greek Orthodox parish programs in the northeastern United States, now serving approximately 750 families spread across sixty-seven cities and towns in Connecticut.

Saint Barbara Greek Orthodox Church at 480 Race Brook Road in Orange serves the Orthodox Christian faithful of New Haven and Fairfield Counties as a parish of the Direct Archdiocesan District of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America.