Saint George Greek Orthodox Church of Saint Paul

History

The first Greek immigrants arrived in Saint Paul following the end of the American Civil War, many of them railroad laborers employed by the Great Northern and Northern Pacific Railroad Companies to work as construction and maintenance workers across the Upper Midwest. They lived on trains and went wherever the line took them, working long hours and depriving themselves of simple pleasures with the ultimate goal of saving money and returning to Greece. As the decades passed, more Greeks settled permanently in Saint Paul, establishing businesses and families in the capital city.

For many years the need for a separate Saint Paul parish was satisfied by the sister city of Minneapolis, where Saint Mary's Greek Orthodox Church on East Lake Street had developed into a substantial community, and the two cities operated under a mutual agreement of equal membership privileges. Through this arrangement, nearly all of the Greek children of Saint Paul were baptized at Saint Mary's and most of their weddings took place there as well. This arrangement postponed the establishment of a Saint Paul parish until 1939, when the Saint Paul Greek community was ready to stand on its own. The community had been officially recognized by the State of Minnesota on May 23, 1918, and for the intervening two decades that organizational structure sustained community life while the faithful traveled to Minneapolis for worship.

The first Saint George Church building served the community through the postwar decades as the parish grew and matured. On March 14, 1967, a fire of unknown origin destroyed the interior of the building, a devastating blow that paradoxically accelerated the community's momentum. Even before the fire, three dedicated women had formed a Temporary Building Fund Committee and built a savings account of more than $22,000. With the building destroyed, the entire community rallied, and within weeks of the fire, as new spring growth filled the trees at the corner of Lexington and Summit, the old building was being razed to make way for a new one. On February 25, 1968, Bishop Timotheos officiated at the cornerstone ceremony, and on July 5, 1968, the first church service was celebrated in the new Saint George Greek Orthodox Church at the corner of Lexington Parkway and Summit Avenue.

Saint George Greek Orthodox Church at 1111 Summit Avenue in Saint Paul serves the Orthodox Christian faithful of the Minnesota capital and the eastern Twin Cities area as a parish of the Greek Orthodox Metropolis of Chicago within the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America.