History

The first Greek Orthodox Church in Minneapolis was built in 1900 on land that today forms part of the University of Minnesota campus, the site where the Weisman Art Museum now stands. The young parish would not remain there long. Within two years the University had appropriated the land for its own expansion, and the Greek Orthodox community of Minneapolis was forced to find a new home for its growing congregation.

In 1909, a new Byzantine-style church was built at East Lake Street and 10th Avenue, a central location made easily accessible by the streetcar line that ran through the neighborhood. The location also placed the church within reach of the Greek population of neighboring St. Paul, and Lake Street's lively atmosphere made it an especially attractive setting for the parish and its school. As with so many immigrant communities of the era, the church and its parochial school became a stronghold of ethnic identity, the place where faith, the Greek language, and ancestral customs were handed down to the next generation of Minnesota Greeks.

The Lake Street church served the community for nearly half a century before being razed in 1955, its land sold to help finance the congregation's next chapter. In the spring of 1956, the cornerstone was laid for an entirely new church on the eastern shore of Bde Maka Ska, formerly known as Lake Calhoun, at 35th Street and Irving Avenue, the site that has been St. Mary's home ever since.

St. Mary's Greek Orthodox Church at 3450 Irving Avenue South in Minneapolis serves the Orthodox Christian faithful of the Twin Cities as a parish of the Greek Orthodox Metropolis of Chicago within the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America, the largest Orthodox church in Minnesota and the spiritual heir of a congregation that has called the city home since 1900.