History

Saint Paraskevi Greek Orthodox Shrine Church of Greenlawn, New York is dedicated to a saint with a remarkable legacy of healing. In the later part of the second century, Saint Paraskevi, while being tortured for her Christian faith, healed the local ruler who had ordered her torture of his own blindness. Upon receiving his sight, the ruler halted her torture and converted to Christianity, though a subsequent ruler later had her beheaded. At the site of her martyrdom in Asia Minor, a small chapel was built in her honor, and over the centuries the saint became venerated throughout the Orthodox world as the patron of eye health and healing more broadly.

Before the Greenlawn community had a church building of its own, the three Christian congregations of the Huntington area, Saint Peter's Lutheran, Saint Patrick's Catholic, and Greenlawn Presbyterian, extended their facilities in true Christian fellowship so that the Greek Orthodox faithful could worship. Those were trying years for the young community, which struggled to retain participating membership and keep its organizations active without a permanent home, even as forward-looking leadership on the Parish Council worked steadily toward a future of its own. When church funds allowed, the parish purchased a six-acre parcel of land on Pulaski Boulevard in Greenlawn, laying the groundwork for what would become a true spiritual landmark of Long Island's North Shore.

At the heart of that new home is the underground Grotto-Shrine adjacent to the church, a faithful replica of the original grotto shrine that stood over a miraculous spring at Therapia, near Constantinople, where Orthodox Christians had for centuries sought the saint's intercession for healing. The Greenlawn shrine has recorded thousands of healings attributed to the saint's intercession over the years, and both the parish and its shrine hold a unique distinction: they are the only Greek Orthodox houses of worship in the Americas bearing the name of Saint Paraskevi.

Saint Paraskevi Greek Orthodox Shrine Church at 1 Shrine Place in Greenlawn serves the Orthodox Christian faithful of Long Island's North Shore as a parish of the Direct Archdiocesan District of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America, a place of worship and pilgrimage where the memory and presence of Saint Paraskevi remain very much alive.