History

Thirteen people gathered around a kitchen table on September 20, 2004, to share their ideas of starting a Greek Orthodox Church in the Lake Norman area. At the time, two other Greek Orthodox churches served the Charlotte area, but the thirty-to-sixty-minute drive made active participation in the life of the Church a real challenge for families living around the lake. At that first casual meeting, the group decided to form an official committee to pursue bringing Orthodoxy to the Lake Norman community.

After procuring a census report, the team reconvened on October 4, 2004. The report indicated a number of families of Greek and Russian descent living in the area, and the committee canvassed the phone book, personally calling more than one hundred families to gauge interest. Many of these families were not attending church at all because of the distance to Charlotte, and approximately fifty-five families showed significant interest in forming a church closer to home, giving the committee the encouragement it needed to move forward. Father Demetrios Kangelaris, presiding priest of Annunciation Greek Orthodox Church in Winston-Salem, provided invaluable guidance as representatives met with Metropolitan Alexios and his Chancellor, Father George Tsahakis, on January 21, 2005. Metropolitan Alexios enthusiastically embraced the idea, granted his approval, and appointed a Parish Council. The name Saint Luke was officially bestowed on June 11, 2005.

After securing a donated temporary facility, the first Divine Liturgy was celebrated on August 20, 2005, and families gathered at that location for nearly two years, with Metropolitan Alexios assigning visiting priests on a weekly basis according to their schedules. Early in 2006, encouraged by robust participation, the community petitioned for Sunday Liturgies, and the parish was blessed with an interim full-time retired priest who began Bible studies and brought several catechumens into the Orthodox faith. By May 2007, having outgrown its original space, the community moved to its current location on Talbert Pointe Road, occupying the front 10,000 square feet of the building. In March 2008, Metropolitan Alexios blessed the growing parish with the assignment of a full-time priest, and in December 2009 the first ever elected Parish Council members were sworn in, nearly four years after that first Liturgy.

In March 2010, new building requirements set forth by the Town of Mooresville Fire Marshall created an urgent need for expanded space. The dedicated families of Saint Luke donned painting clothes and wielded carpentry tools themselves, transforming an unused storage area of the building into the sanctuary that stands today. The parish now occupies more than 21,000 square feet of the facility, and the expansion allowed for the installation of an Iconostasion generously donated by Saint Nektarios Greek Orthodox Church in Charlotte.

Saint Luke Greek Orthodox Church at 134 Talbert Pointe Road in Mooresville serves the Orthodox Christian faithful of the Lake Norman region as a parish of the Greek Orthodox Metropolis of Atlanta within the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America, a diverse community where the Lord's Prayer is recited in Greek, Slavonic, Arabic, Spanish, and English, carrying forward the vision of the thirteen founders who gathered around a kitchen table to bring Orthodoxy to the lake.