History

Saint John the Baptist Greek Orthodox Church of Des Plaines, Illinois holds the distinction of being the first Greek Orthodox church established in the northwest suburbs of Chicago, its founding the direct result of the determination of a small group of women who would not accept that their children would grow up without a church of their own. The story begins in the fall of 1954, when a concerned young mother named Christine Demmie of Palatine placed a notice in the local newspaper requesting all women of the Greek Orthodox faith living in the northwest suburbs to meet and discuss the possibility of establishing a church and Sunday School. On October 7, 1954, the first meeting took place in the home of Mr. and Mrs. Gus Georgans of Des Plaines, with fifteen women in attendance who formed the Northwest Suburban Women's Club, electing Christine Demmie as their first president.

Through the years that followed, the Women's Club held bake sales, organized fundraising events, and built the financial foundation that would make a church possible. By May 1959 the effort had gathered enough momentum that a general meeting of the community voted overwhelmingly in favor of purchasing the Good Shepherd Lutheran Church on Prospect and Illinois Street in Des Plaines. On May 23, 1959, approximately thirty-five families purchased the building for $29,500, and the first Greek Orthodox church in the northwest suburbs was established and proudly named Saint John the Baptist. The name John was chosen in memory of John Karavidas, a young man of the community who had been killed in the service of his country during World War II.

As membership grew to approximately 350 families by 1963, the community recognized the need for a larger campus. In the fall of 1962 a wooded five-and-a-quarter-acre parcel of land was purchased for $40,000, and in December 1962 a meeting at the Chicago Yacht Club launched the Founding Fathers program, with initial pledges of $42,000 made that evening. Construction began on a new Educational and Cultural Building in November 1963, with the first Liturgy celebrated in the new facilities on September 20, 1964. The iconography of the main church building was completed at Christmas 1976, enriching the sanctuary with the visual theology of the Orthodox tradition.

Saint John the Baptist Greek Orthodox Church at 2350 East Dempster Street in Des Plaines serves the Orthodox Christian faithful of the northwest suburbs of Chicago as a parish of the Greek Orthodox Metropolis of Chicago within the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America, a community that grew from fifteen women meeting in a living room into one of the most vital Greek Orthodox parishes in the Chicagoland area.