Kostis Kourelis, The History of Saint George Greek Orthodox Cathedral: 200 Years of Hellenism in Philadelphia. Philadelphia: Saint George Greek Orthodox Cathedral of Philadelphia. 2025. Pp. 199. 131 illustrations, 5 maps. Paperback $100.

The History of Saint George Greek Orthodox Cathedral: 200 Years of Hellenism in Philadelphia is divided into seven chapters that chronicle the history of St. George from 1822 to 2022. The first chapter discusses the justification and approach for the composition of the book. According to its author, Dr. Kostis Kourelis, Associate Professor of Art History at Franklin and Marshall College, the book “inverts the model of commemorative publication away from the better-known recent years to the less-known distant years. It acknowledges that a church is a temporal institution that challenges and reinvents itself in creative ways across the generations” (19).

The purpose of commemorative publications like the one under review is to document significant milestones achieved by a group or organization using primary sources such as photographs, documents, and oral histories. Consequently, commemorative publications occupy a place within the field of Memory Studies and employ collective memory to construct coherent, often homogenized narratives (Olick 1999; Roudometof 2003; Halbwachs 1942). While The History of Saint George Greek Orthodox Cathedral adheres in spirit to the purpose of commemorative publications, its chapters also incorporate elements typically found in works of art history and sociology, setting it apart.

Specifically, reflecting the author’s expertise in art history, each chapter connects the architecture and aesthetics of St. George's interior and exterior to the community’s history. Chapter Two examines the period preceding the community's establishment (1822-1890), when the building now known as St. George was constructed in the Greek Revival style in 1822 and served an Episcopalian congregation. The Episcopalians consecrated the building as St. Andrew and held their first service in 1823. Interestingly, the edifice’s architectural style was not the St. Andrew community’s only connection to Greece. Led by Rev. James Bedell, the congregation of St. Andrew supported the Greek struggle for independence against the Ottoman Empire through fundraisers, the proceeds of which were used to provide food and clothing to those impacted by the war.

In Chapter Three, Kourelis briefly introduces us to the prominent and influential Farmaki and Stefano families, who financed Philadelphia’s first Greek Orthodox Church, the Annunciation (1908). Like in so many other Greek Orthodox communities, Greek politics of the second decade of the twentieth century divided the Annunciation’s congregation into Venizelist and Monarchist camps, catalyzing the establishment of St. George by Venizelists in 1921. While the Stefano family continued to financially support the Annunciation, the Farmaki family was one of the founders of St. George.

Chapter Four briefly examines how Greek politics influenced the Helladic Greek and Ottoman Greek immigrant communities in Philadelphia and their interfaith relations with the Episcopalians in the 1920s. In this chapter, we learn that Patriarch Meletios publicly shared his intention to unify the Greek Orthodox and Episcopal Churches, with Philadelphia as the epicenter, and that “credible conversations over unification” with the Episcopalians took place (88). The chapter closes with a brief discussion of the aesthetics of St. George’s iconography, the addition of Enthroned Virgin by Theodore Tsavalas, for example, the transformation of the “white aniconic Protestant space into an Orthodox space,” and the connection to the Russian Orthodox Churches in Philadelphia through the inclusion of an iconostasis.

Chapter Five expands upon the origins and connections of St. George’s iconography with other churches in the US and Greece. A 1930 fire destroyed the church’s interior during the Great Depression, and a new charter created an executive board to restore St. George, which was shuttered from 1935 to 1937. The board commissioned Constantine Triantaphilou, who added thirty pieces of “figurative religious art” to the church’s interior in a style akin to that of St. Nicholas in Chicago and St. Louis. Like Tsavalas before him, Triantaphilou “continued the tradition of Munich School of art, as it migrated from the churches of Athens to New York” (121). Chapter Five concludes with a brief overview of the St. George community’s participation in the Greek War Relief Association.

The sixth chapter focuses on the period 1946–1976. It draws on sociological research to contextualize a shift in the mission of St. George and other Philadelphia churches toward “social welfare, increasingly caring for the poor, the elderly, and newly arrived immigrants” (153). This shift was driven by deindustrialization and white flight from the city center to the suburbs from 1960 to 1970. Greek Americans were active participants in white flight, moving northward and westward. Kourelis notes the new Greek Orthodox churches established during this time and the backgrounds of the parishioners who founded them.

Finally, Chapter Seven highlights major commemorative events that took place at St. George between 1977-2022 and the dignitaries who attended them. It also mentions the role that the community played in fellowship with the Ethiopian (1980s), Albanian (1990s), and Syrian Orthodox (2000s) communities in Philadelphia. The chapter concludes with a discussion of Archbishop Iakovos’s efforts to create a unified Orthodox Church in America and an overview of the clergy who served at St. George in the 2000s.

As each chapter’s contents reveal, Kourelis’s commemorative publication of St. George is unique in several salient ways. First, it connects the building's architectural and aesthetic features to the community’s history, positioning it as a work of art history. Second, although its chapters are arranged chronologically rather than thematically, Kourelis imbues them with concepts that connect St. George’s history to the broader social and historical context documented in existing scholarship. Kourelis’s discussion of deindustrialization and white flight in Chapter Six exemplifies such concepts. Finally, throughout the book, Kourelis encourages further research on topics that he does not examine in depth. For example, in Chapter Six, he invites the book’s academic audience to investigate “the story of Greek attitudes towards race, de-segregation and social justice” (167). Such invitations are common in empirical research but rare in similar commemorative publications. I believe that both the general public and scholars interested in Greek American studies are better served by authors of commemorative publications who not only chronicle the histories of their communities but also identify connections to academic scholarship and suggest avenues for further research.

Overall, this commemorative publication sets a good example for future efforts by other Greek American organizations. However, the historical sociologist in me was left wondering about the less prominent but equally influential individuals who called St. George home. For instance, aside from the Stefano and Farmaki families and clergy, who else played a catalytic role in the routine, day-to-day preservation and development of St. George? This is a question to be addressed by a future edition. Kourelis mentions some individuals involved in church programs, such as the Sunday school director, Theresa Chletcos, but background information about them, similar to that provided about the Stefano and Farmaki families, would expand the reader’s knowledge about the community. Along similar lines, future editions would also benefit from reconsideration of the book’s binding, as the pages in this version came loose with nearly every turn.

In sum, I believe that Kourelis’s The History of Saint George Greek Orthodox Cathedral is a call for increased collaboration between Greek American organizations and scholars specializing in Greek American culture and history. This book is the product of an intimate relationship between the author and the organization. Kourelis served as the parish council president in 2021-2022 and as vice-president at present. During his tenure, he had access to St. George’s archives and analyzed them along with secondary sources to produce this commemorative publication. Although such insider status between scholars and community organizations is not always feasible, some level of rapport is necessary because it often yields mutually beneficial, knowledge-generating outcomes for the organization, academia, and the general public. Kourelis closes by asserting that “the next 100 years of St. George will… look radically different from its first 100 years” (190). Hopefully, so will future commemorative publications by Greek American organizations.

Yiorgo Topalidis

Flagler College

Dr. Yiorgo Topalidis is a Visiting Lecturer in the Department of Behavioral Sciences at Flagler College. Dr. Topalidis earned a doctorate in Sociology from the University of Florida in 2022. Yiorgo’s research interests include emigration from the Ottoman Empire to the U.S. and the construction, contestation, and transgenerational transfer of White identity. His most recent publications appear in the Journal of Modern Greek Studies, the Journal of Sociology of Race and Ethnicity, and the Journal of Urban History. He is working on a monograph that explores the social construction of Ottoman Greek migrant identity in an early-20th-century U.S. context as a case study for decoupling Whiteness from White supremacist Whiteness.

Works Cited

Halbwachs, Maurice. 1942. On Collective Memory. Edited by Lewis A. Coser. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Olick, Jeffrey K. 1999. “Collective Memory: The Two Cultures.” Sociological Theory 17 (3): 333–48.

Roudometof, Victor. 2003. “Beyond Commemoration: The Politics of Collective Memory.” Journal of Political & Military Sociology 31 (2): 161–69.