History

Saint Spyridon Greek Orthodox Church of Monessen, Pennsylvania stands as one of the most celebrated Greek Orthodox parishes in the Mon Valley, a church so beloved in the memory of the Greek diaspora that a young boy growing up on the island of Chios would fall asleep listening to his grandmother's stories of a magnificent church in a little American city, and dream of one day serving there as its priest.

The story of the Monessen Greek community begins with the founding of the city itself. Monessen was established in 1902, and the first Greek to arrive was George Katsuleris from the Aegean island of Chios, who was soon followed by waves of compatriots from Chios and other Greek islands and regions. By 1919 there were an estimated 2,000 Greeks in Monessen, one of the largest Greek communities in the entire Mon Valley. They worked in the tin mill and at Pittsburgh Steel, labored in the wire mill and labor gang, and some experienced divers were called upon to inspect underwater machinery in the Monongahela River. Others left the mills to open businesses of their own, and by 1960 Monessen had forty Greek-owned businesses. The streets around Twelfth and Schoonmaker became the heart of a thriving Greek community that included fish markets, candy stores, restaurants, groceries, and dairies.

Archbishop Athenagoras, who would later become the 268th Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, honored Saint Spyridon with two visits, a distinction that reflects the parish's standing in the broader life of Greek Orthodoxy in America.

Saint Spyridon Greek Orthodox Church at 117 Saint Spyridon Lane serves the Orthodox Christian faithful of the Monongahela Valley as a parish of the Greek Orthodox Metropolis of Pittsburgh within the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America, a magnificent church whose reputation has crossed the Atlantic and endured across generations.