History

Saint George Greek Orthodox Church of Redding, California began in the 1970s when a group of Greek families in the Shasta County area started meeting together for services, gathering first in private homes before the congregation grew large enough to seek other arrangements. Without a priest of their own, the early community relied on visiting clergy for the sacraments while sustaining a regular life of prayer and fellowship. As the group grew they rented conference rooms and chapels before finding more lasting arrangements at the Millville Grange and later at the Native Daughters of the Golden West hall on California Street.

In 1996 the community recruited its first resident priest, Father Gregory, and in 1998 moved to its present home beneath the historic Lorenz Hotel in the heart of downtown Redding. The space had originally been an open courtyard that, after being covered with a roof, had served at various times as a theater and a bar. The congregation transformed it over the years into a reverent sanctuary complete with chandelier and iconostasis, a worshipping space the community compares with affection to the catacombs where the early Church gathered. A notable spiritual occurrence in the parish's early years was the appearance of the Sign of the Cross on a curtain within the worship space, which is preserved as a visible reminder of God's presence within the community.

From its Greek immigrant origins the parish has grown into a genuinely diverse Pan-Orthodox community, with most of its services conducted in English and the Lord's Prayer preserved in Greek in honor of the founding Greek families. The parish has kept its doors open through tests of faith that, in its own words, would have broken a less dedicated group.

Saint George Greek Orthodox Church in Redding serves the Orthodox Christian faithful of the North State region of California as a mission parish of the Greek Orthodox Metropolis of San Francisco within the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America.