History

The Greek Orthodox community of Nashua, New Hampshire has roots stretching back to February 1906, when an estimated 350 Greek Americans in the area established the Annunciation of the Virgin Mary Parish, one of the earliest Greek Orthodox communities in New Hampshire. In 1923 a second parish, Saint Nicholas, was founded in Nashua, the result of the Royalist-Venizelist political division that split Greek immigrant communities across America in that era. The two churches stood in the same neighborhood, within clear view of each other, yet maintained separate institutional identities for nearly half a century while their members worshipped apart, bound by political loyalties to the old country that slowly faded as successive generations were born in New Hampshire.

In 1972 the two communities accomplished what their founders could not have imagined: a complete merger into a single unified parish. Land was purchased in a prominent location near Interstate 3, Nashua's main artery to Boston and Manchester, and a new church was constructed under the archpastorate of Archbishop Iakovos. To avoid any sense that one community had prevailed over the other, both names, the Annunciation and Saint Nicholas, were deliberately set aside. The new unified parish was dedicated instead to the Holy Apostle Philip, and it holds the distinction of being the only parish in the entire Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America to bear that dedication. In October 1973, Archbishop Iakovos celebrated the first service in the new church, and one year later returned to formally name it Saint Philip. The church was consecrated in November 1982.

The hand-carved iconostasis stretches the full width of the building, incorporating icons of the Annunciation and Saint Nicholas in a deliberate tribute to the two parishes whose merger gave Saint Philip its existence. The mortgage was retired in August 1993, and in 2000 an addition was completed and paid for at its completion, a reflection of a community that has built and maintained its home with the discipline of the founding generations.

Saint Philip Greek Orthodox Church at 500 West Hollis Street in Nashua serves the Orthodox Christian faithful of southern New Hampshire as a parish of the Greek Orthodox Metropolis of Boston within the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America, the spiritual home of more than 300 Orthodox Christian families and the only parish in Orthodoxy named for the Apostle Philip.