History

The first Greek immigrants arrived on Cape Cod between 1910 and 1918, with their spiritual needs initially served by a priest from New Bedford who would make the journey to the Cape on occasional Saturdays. For two decades the community gathered informally, and in 1938 Michael R. Pazakis formed the Greek American Citizen's Club, laying the groundwork for a more formal community organization. The following year, a Grange Hall in Hyannis was purchased and became the first Greek Orthodox Church on Cape Cod, incorporated under the name Greek Orthodox Church of Cape Cod.

On March 27, 1948, the Greek community held a meeting to formally organize and establish a church, and on January 21, 1949, the parish was officially constituted with Rev. Spyros Mourikis appointed as its first priest. He would go on to serve the community for an extraordinary 42 years. The first Parish Council was elected on October 16, 1949, with James R. Pazakis as its first president. In April 1950, Mr. George Dedopoulos became the sponsor of the church and bestowed upon it the name Saint George, the name the parish carries to this day.

As the community grew, so did its ambitions. A school annex was built in 1960, and by 1978 the membership voted to relocate and construct an entirely new church complex. Ground was broken on June 3, 1979 by His Eminence Archbishop Iakovos, construction began in October 1980, and the doors of the new church on Falmouth Road in Centerville were opened on June 20-21, 1981. Archbishop Iakovos returned on October 8 and 9, 1988 to formally consecrate the new church, assisted by His Grace Bishop Methodios of Boston.

When Fr. Mourikis retired on June 30, 1991 after 42 years of service, the community center was officially named the Reverend Spyros Mourikis Community Center in his honor. His successor, Rev. Fr. Panagiotis K. Giannakopoulos, arrived from Holy Trinity of Fitchburg and immediately set to work on a series of improvements to the church and grounds. Under his leadership the church underwent significant beautification, including the replacement of its 120 circular windows with 28 large arched thermo pane windows adorned with Byzantine iconography, the work of iconographer Michael Martino of Framingham. A copy of one of those windows, depicting a green angel, was later donated to Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I on his first pastoral visit to America.

Further beautification followed in the years ahead. In 2005, the renowned iconographer George Kopsidas traveled from Greece to repaint the entire interior background of the church by hand, revitalizing its full iconographic richness. In 2007, a gift of $125,000 from the estate of Marius Dimitrakis and his wife Ann was used to construct a new narthex at the front of the church, complete with five stained glass windows donated by parishioners, a copper roof, carved front doors, and a cry room. In 2013, Kopsidas returned to iconograph the new narthex, producing what many consider his finest original masterpieces.

Today, Saint George Greek Orthodox Church of Cape Cod stands at 1130 Falmouth Road as the only Greek Orthodox church on Cape Cod, welcoming parishioners and visitors from across the Cape and Plymouth under the Greek Orthodox Metropolis of Boston. It is a community that has grown from a borrowed Grange Hall into a consecrated house of worship, carrying more than 75 years of faith, fellowship, and Hellenic heritage into the future.