History

Saint George Greek Orthodox Cathedral of Philadelphia occupies one of the most historically significant ecclesiastical buildings in the United States, a structure whose story spans two centuries and two Christian traditions. The building at 256 South 8th Street was designed by the renowned architect John Haviland and constructed between 1822 and 1823 as Saint Andrew's Episcopal Church, its six Ionic columns inspired by the ancient temple of Dionysus at Teos and its Greek Revival style then at the height of its popularity in North America. As an Episcopal parish, Saint Andrew's was a strong supporter of the Greek struggle for independence from the Ottoman Empire, and its rector in 1827 delivered a sermon in support of Greek liberty, giving the building a particular historical connection to Hellenism long before Greek Orthodox Christians ever worshipped within its walls.

The Greek Orthodox Community of Philadelphia was formally established in 1901, and its members' first house of worship was the Evangelismos Church, founded in 1908 when the community purchased All Saints Episcopal Church at 745 South 12th Street, the first Greek Orthodox church in Philadelphia. As the community continued to grow through the great wave of Greek immigration of the early twentieth century, a larger and more centrally located church was sought. In 1922, the Greek Orthodox community purchased the Saint Andrew's building and reconsecrated it as the Saint George Greek Orthodox Church, giving the nearly century-old building a new sacred life. Within a few years Archbishop Athenagoras, who would later become the 268th Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, elevated Saint George to the rank of Cathedral, designating it the mother church of all the Greek Orthodox communities of the greater Philadelphia area.

The building that Haviland designed for an Episcopal congregation proved an extraordinary vessel for Orthodox Christian worship. Its six Ionic columns, which had spoken accidentally of ancient Greece, now housed the ancient Eastern Christian liturgical tradition in a setting whose architectural DNA was genuinely Hellenic. The Cathedral's interior has been enriched over the decades with stained glass windows, icons, and sacred furnishings that have given the nineteenth-century structure the character of an Orthodox house of worship.

In 2022 the Cathedral celebrated its centennial as a Greek Orthodox church, with Archbishop Elpidophoros of America presiding at a Hierarchical Divine Liturgy attended by the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Philadelphia and representatives of the Greek and Panamanian consulates, who together recognized what Archbishop Elpidophoros called the multiplicity of histories embedded in the structure itself.

Saint George Greek Orthodox Cathedral at 256 South 8th Street in Philadelphia serves the Orthodox Christian faithful of the greater Philadelphia area as the Cathedral of the Greek Orthodox Metropolis of New Jersey within the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America, the oldest standing Greek Orthodox church in the City of Philadelphia and a landmark of the Washington Square West neighborhood for more than two centuries.