History

The first Orthodox Christians to arrive from Greece in hopes of a new life in the Lehigh Valley came to Bethlehem in 1911, opening restaurants and finding work at Bethlehem Steel, the great industrial colossus on the banks of the Lehigh River. Large numbers of Greek immigrants followed in 1915, drawn by the Steel's voracious wartime demand for labor, and by 1916 the community had grown sufficiently that its members recognized the need to preserve their faith, language, and customs in a permanent house of worship. That year they purchased the former St. Joseph's Episcopal Church at 1224 East Fourth Street on the South Side of Bethlehem for $12,500, and Saint Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church was born. A great number of the founders traced their roots to Asia Minor, the region where Saint Nicholas himself had lived and preached in the fourth century, and it is believed this connection inspired the community's devotion to that patron.

For nearly four decades the East Fourth Street church served the Greek Orthodox population of the Lehigh Valley, witnessing the growth of a community that had arrived with little and built much. By 1955, however, the parish had outgrown its original home, and the present site at 1607 West Union Boulevard was purchased. Three years later, in December 1958, a general assembly voted unanimously to build a new church, school, and social auditorium on the property. Groundbreaking ceremonies were held in March 1959, and Father Timothy Negropontis oversaw the construction that began in 1960. The Opening of the Doors, the Thyranoixia, was celebrated in April 1962, fulfilling what the community called a dream come true. The mortgage on the new building was burned in 1971.

Saint Nicholas Cathedral celebrated its centennial in October 2016, honoring a century of Greek Orthodox life in the Lehigh Valley. In the decades that followed, the Cathedral grew into one of the fifteen largest parishes in the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America, home to more than eighty preschoolers at Saint Nicholas Academy, over 120 Sunday School students, and a Monday evening Greek School drawing dozens of children each week.

Saint Nicholas Greek Orthodox Cathedral at 1607 West Union Boulevard in Bethlehem serves the Orthodox Christian faithful of the Lehigh Valley as a Cathedral of the Greek Orthodox Metropolis of Pittsburgh within the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America, a multicultural community of more than a century's witness to the ancient faith in the heart of Pennsylvania's steel country.