Three Hierarchs Greek Orthodox Church of Brooklyn

History

Three Hierarchs Greek Orthodox Church of Brooklyn, New York carries an origin story unlike any other parish in the city. In 1922, three laymen from the southern part of Brooklyn, businessmen named Vasilios, Ioannis, and Gregorios, appealed to Archbishop Alexander on behalf of the immigrant laboring community of Coney Island and the surrounding neighborhoods, requesting that a new Greek Orthodox church be established to serve their community. Archbishop Alexander granted the appeal, and by divine inspiration the new church was named in honor of the three men who had made it possible, taking as its patron the Three Holy Hierarchs: Saint Basil the Great, Saint John Chrysostomos, and Saint Gregory the Theologian, whose feast day is celebrated on January 30. The parish was formally chartered in 1929, making it the second oldest Greek Orthodox church in Brooklyn.

In 1943 a new church was acquired that became the cornerstone of the parish's present-day location at 1724 Avenue P in the Gravesend neighborhood. From that new home the community continued to grow, establishing an afternoon Greek School, a Catechetical School, and eventually in 1975 the Three Hierarchs Greek-American Day School, which operated for thirty-six years as a parochial school nurturing generations of students in the Greek Orthodox faith, Hellenic culture, and the Greek language before its closure in 2011 due to financial challenges.

What has set Three Hierarchs apart from virtually every other Greek Orthodox parish in America is its extraordinary embrace of Pan-Orthodox community life. As Brooklyn's demographics shifted and the Greek population dispersed, the parish opened its doors to Russian, Ukrainian, and Georgian Orthodox communities, each of which established its own congregation under the Three Hierarchs roof, with separate clergy celebrating the Divine Liturgy in their native tongues each week. A Georgian Orthodox community subsequently joined as well. Under a single roof, Three Hierarchs became simultaneously a Greek, Russian, Ukrainian, and Georgian Orthodox church, a living embodiment of the Ecumenical Patriarchate's vision of Orthodoxy that transcends ethnic boundaries while honoring each tradition's heritage.

Three Hierarchs Greek Orthodox Church at 1724 Avenue P in Brooklyn serves the Orthodox Christian faithful of southern Brooklyn as a parish of the Direct Archdiocesan District of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America, a prophetic community of welcome that has sheltered and nurtured Orthodox Christians of many nations for more than a century.