History

Saint John the Baptist Greek Orthodox Church of Tampa, Florida is the second oldest Greek Orthodox community in the Tampa Bay area, its roots tracing to the Cathedral of Saint Nicholas in Tarpon Springs, from which many founding families had originally settled before migrating to Hillsborough County on the east side of Tampa Bay. In the early 1950s, the Greek community of Tampa held services at the American Hellenic Center in downtown Tampa and in various local Protestant churches, sustained by the desire of a growing community for a church of its own.

The church community was formally founded with the laying of the cornerstone on January 7, 1956, the feast day of Saint John the Baptist, a date whose significance was not lost on the thirty families who made up the parish. The story of how the community came to be named Saint John carries a warmth that reflects the spirit of its founders: so many of the founding members bore the name John, some named for Saint John the Baptist, others for Saint John Chrysostom, and still others for other saints of the Orthodox calendar who carried that beloved name, that the community could not decide which Saint John to honor without risk of giving offense. They resolved the impasse simply and graciously by settling on Saint John the Baptist when that icon was placed in the prominent position in the newly constructed iconostasis.

After the church and a small hall and administration building were established in 1956, the community grew steadily through the following decades. In the 1970s an extensive iconography project covered nearly every surface of the church walls, giving the interior its distinctive Byzantine character. In the early 1980s a large community center housing a kitchen and gymnasium was built, later named the Kourmolis Center in honor of Archon Peter Kourmolis and his wife Sophia. Archbishop Iakovos consecrated Saint John's in 1987, with Bishop John of Atlanta and Bishop Iakovos of Catania as co-celebrants. As the Tampa Bay area continued to grow, Saint John provided liturgical and clerical support in founding two sister parishes, Saint Sophia in Winter Haven and Saint Barbara in Sarasota. The parish also established the Junior Orthodox Olympics, which brings together Orthodox youth from across the Tampa Bay area and northern Florida each June.

Saint John the Baptist Greek Orthodox Church at 2418 West Swann Avenue in Tampa serves the Orthodox Christian faithful of Hillsborough County as a parish of the Greek Orthodox Metropolis of Atlanta within the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America, a community that has grown from thirty founding families into nearly four hundred families across seven decades of parish life in the heart of Tampa.