St. Demetrios Greek Orthodox Church of Jersey City

History

Saint Demetrios Greek Orthodox Church of Jersey City, New Jersey was founded before 1920, making it one of the oldest Greek Orthodox communities in Hudson County and a parish that has now been active for more than a century. The congregation's earliest years saw it move through several locations as it grew and established itself in the Jersey City community, passing through Tonnelle Avenue from 1926 to 1928 before moving to York Street, where the church was renamed Saint Demetrios in honor of Demetrios Magos, a benefactor who donated a building that had previously served as a Jewish Community Center. From 1936 until the 1970s the parish was located at 240 Montgomery Street in downtown Jersey City, with Father Angelo Tsigounis serving as the long-tenured pastor who gave much of his life to the community. Father Tsigounis died on January 8, 1948, during a major snowstorm while helping the poor, and his son James Tsigounis later became a priest himself in honor of his father's example.

By the 1970s the congregation had grown beyond the capacity of the Montgomery Street location, and in 1971 Parish Council President Peter Karavoulias and Father George Oikonomou purchased the present church at 524 Summit Avenue for $65,000, a former Protestant church whose building gave the congregation the space it needed behind Journal Square. The church has never left the Jersey City community through all its various moves, remaining a constant presence in the urban fabric of Hudson County through every decade of transformation the city has undergone.

One of the parish's distinctive historical associations is its Pontic Society, founded in 1929 by Greek refugees who had survived the genocide of the Pontic Greeks between 1913 and 1922, one of the earliest Pontic societies organized in America. The parish also received a historic visit from Makarios III, former President of Cyprus, during his years in office. The parish holds two annual festivals each year, one in September at the Jersey City All About Downtown Street Fair and another during the Greek Apokreas carnival season in February.

Saint Demetrios Greek Orthodox Church at 524 Summit Avenue in Jersey City serves the Orthodox Christian faithful of Hudson County as a parish of the Greek Orthodox Metropolis of New Jersey within the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America.