Saint Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church of Jamestown

History

Saint Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church of Jamestown, New York is the only Greek Orthodox church in Chautauqua County, and its history is inseparable from the history of the Greek community that built it. The first Greek immigrant arrived in Jamestown in 1886, and over the following decades a steady stream of Greeks settled in the area, drawn by work in the city's furniture and textile mill industries. The first Greek child born in Jamestown arrived in 1896, and by the early 20th century the community had grown large enough to sustain its own parish.

In 1921, a visiting priest from the Epirotic Society held a Divine Liturgy in Jamestown on the Feast of the Dormition of the Theotokos, the first Greek Orthodox service in the city, celebrated in the club room of the Odd Fellows Ellicott Lodge at 311 Washington Street. Seeing the size and devotion of the assembled Greek community, the priest urged Jamestown to establish its own church. A building committee was formed, a charter was obtained, and a property at 58 Chapman Street was purchased. Construction began on St. Nicholas Day in December 1922, and the first Divine Liturgy in the new building was celebrated on Easter 1923. A choir balcony was added in 1927, a bell tower in 1928, and in 1930 the basement was excavated to create a fellowship hall. A priest who arrived in 1925 served the community for 31 years, during which the congregation grew and extended its ministry to surrounding communities in Chautauqua County and beyond.

In 1945 a fire damaged the Chapman Street church, and the parish purchased a vacant lot on Mount Vernon Place with an eye toward building anew. That new building was not undertaken until a second fire, an electrical fire in 1963, made the decision unavoidable. Construction on the Mount Vernon Place property began in 1965. The new circular structure was designed to represent the cosmos and to orient the congregation toward the east, in anticipation of Christ's return, as Orthodox tradition requires. The first Divine Liturgy in the new building was celebrated in December 1965, and the church was consecrated by Archbishop Iakovos in 1968. Over the following decades the interior was enriched with stained glass windows installed in 1975 and the Pantocrator ceiling icon completed in 1988. The original pews from the Chapman Street building were carried over and remain in use today.

Saint Nicholas has long extended its ministry into the broader Jamestown community. The parish helped establish the soup kitchen known today as the St. Susan Center, and its annual Yassou Greek Festival, held since 1982, has become one of the city's beloved cultural events. In 2022, the Fenton History Center honored the parish's centennial with a dedicated exhibition tracing the history of the Greek Orthodox community in Jamestown.

Today, Saint Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church stands at 15 Francis Street in Jamestown as a parish of the Greek Orthodox Metropolis of Boston, a small but steadfast community serving the Orthodox faithful of Chautauqua County for more than a century.