History

Saint Haralambos Greek Orthodox Church of Peoria, Arizona was organized in the early 1980s as the West Valley Greek Orthodox Church, established to serve the Orthodox Christian faithful of the rapidly growing communities west of Phoenix that had no parish of their own. The first parish General Assembly was held in September 1986 with the election of the first Parish Council, and in those early years the community rented meeting space at a local elementary school while services were celebrated by several local Orthodox clergy.

In June 1988 the parish purchased its first church facility, a building originally constructed as the Peoria Church of the Nazarene, through the collaborative effort of the congregation and the Home Foundation established by Peter and John Maniatis. In September 1989 Father George Patides was assigned as the first full-time pastor, and in November 1990 the community formally chose its patron saint, selecting Saint Haralambos the Hieromartyr, the beloved second-century priest who endured extraordinary suffering at the age of 113 rather than renounce Christ, and whose feast day on February 10 has been the parish's patronal celebration ever since.

In June 2009 the original facility was sold to Saint Mary's Coptic Orthodox Church, and the parish entered a transitional period while pursuing its new permanent home. In November 2009 a newly built twelve-thousand-five-hundred-square-foot building at a seven-acre site in north Peoria was identified, and in January 2010 a Special General Assembly voted to purchase the former Pinnacle Peak Community Church, giving the Saint Haralambos community the larger and more permanent home it had been seeking. The campus, set in a beautiful residential neighborhood with classrooms, offices, and fellowship space alongside the sanctuary, has served the parish community ever since.

Saint Haralambos Greek Orthodox Church in Peoria serves the Orthodox Christian faithful of the West Valley as a parish of the Greek Orthodox Metropolis of San Francisco within the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America, a loving Christ-centered community whose mission is to keep, practice, and proclaim the Orthodox Christian faith as a living presence to those around it.