Our Parish History

The first Greek immigrant thought to have settled in the Amarillo area was John Yianitsou, who arrived from Borger, Texas around 1924 and established a hardware store. He and his brother, Gus, were eventually the main organizers of the community, and its biggest contributors, along with a few families who came from Thessaloniki., including Peter and George Georgantonis.

As was the practice throughout the United States, the first Greeks who settled here opened restaurants. They formed a community sometime in the mid-1940s and gathered where they could to worship.  Fr. Methodios Papappostolou is thought to be the first priest. Since then, many priests have served the parish for brief periods.

By 1949, the small number of families built a small clapboard building near downtown that served as their first house of worship. The building was taken by the state in the mid-1960s under eminent domain for the construction of a segment of Interstate 40.

The church relocated further west, to its present site, a small building with a community hall and a parish house. Over the years, membership has become more diverse. Members' ethnicities other than Greek include Ukrainians, Belorussians, Armenians, Ethiopians, Lebanese, Cossacks, and Arabs.

Source: Orthodox Observer - August 2008