History

The story of Saint John the Baptist Greek Orthodox Church of Boston reaches back to the earliest years of the twentieth century, when Greek immigrants in the South End neighborhood began gathering to organize a community of faith. On the first Sunday of February 1922, Greek Orthodox faithful gathered at the hall at Number 10 Warrenton Street known as Bernard Memorial and resolved to establish a Greek Orthodox community bearing the name Greek Orthodox Church of Boston, Saint John the Baptist. The first Constitutional Charter of the Parish was published that same year, stating two purposes with equal weight: to sustain a Greek Orthodox Church and to establish a Greek School offering children of Greek descent an education as Greek as possible.

The building that would become the permanent home of this community carries a layered history of its own. Constructed in 1862 by a Protestant congregation, the edifice at 15 Union Park Street in the South End later became the Temple Ohabei Shalom, a Jewish synagogue that occupied the building from 1887 to 1921 before relocating to Beacon Street in Brookline. In 1924 the Parish of Saint John the Baptist purchased the magnificent building for $65,000 with a down payment of $6,000, transforming a structure that had served successive communities of faith into an Orthodox house of worship that it has remained ever since. The building is a Greek Revival structure of considerable architectural distinction, with 1958 stained glass windows added during its Orthodox era enriching an already impressive interior.

The Parish of Saint John the Baptist came under the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of North and South America through a gradual and historically interesting process, joining definitively during the tenure of Archbishop Athenagoras, who would later become the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople. A decisive General Assembly resolution of July 31, 1936 invited the Archbishop of America and the Bishop of Boston to celebrate at the parish temple, and the Minutes of December 5, 1943 record preparations for a Hierarchical Liturgy by Archbishop Athenagoras, the formal beginning of the parish's full participation in the Archdiocesan structure.

Saint John the Baptist Greek Orthodox Church at 15 Union Park Street in Boston serves the Orthodox Christian faithful of the South End and greater Boston as a parish of the Greek Orthodox Metropolis of Boston within the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America, a vibrant and historic community of faith in one of Boston's most distinguished neighborhoods, its ancient Byzantine hymnody rising each Sunday from a building that has sheltered the prayers of three faith traditions across more than 160 years.