History

Saints Constantine and Helen Greek Orthodox Church of Boise, Idaho was founded in 1951 by Greek residents of southwestern Idaho, immigrants from Greece and the island of Crete who had made the Treasure Valley their home and recognized the need for a permanent house of Orthodox Christian worship in the state capital.

The founding congregation, though modest in means, built a church in Boise's established North End neighborhood at what is now 2618 West Bannock Street, a location that placed the young parish in the heart of an older residential district of the city. The church's architecture reflects the Byzantine and Greek Orthodox tradition, featuring arched doorways, stained glass windows bearing the Greek symbol of Jesus Christ, and oil lamps, all characteristic of the Eastern Christian tradition. The original members drew on the Orthodox traditions not only of Greece and Crete but of Romania, Serbia, Albania, Czechoslovakia, Poland, and Cyprus, a breadth that reflected the diverse Orthodoxy of the broader community.

From those immigrant origins the parish has grown into a vibrant center of Orthodox Christian worship and cultural life in the Treasure Valley, drawing faithful from across the Boise metropolitan area and surrounding communities of southwestern Idaho. The annual Boise Greek Festival, held each June, has grown into one of the most beloved cultural events in southern Idaho, drawing thousands of visitors to experience authentic Greek cuisine, music, and dance and to encounter the ancient tradition of the Orthodox Church that the parish's founders carried with them from their Aegean homelands.

Saints Constantine and Helen Greek Orthodox Church at 2618 West Bannock Street in Boise serves the Orthodox Christian faithful of the Treasure Valley as a parish of the Greek Orthodox Metropolis of Denver within the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America.