Something rare about St. George Greek Orthodox Cathedral is that unlike most other institutions, the church bothered to create an in depth and public account of its own history, even going so far as to include street addresses for several of its previous locations.
Like other ethnic organizations, this church was not always in this location. Before this building opened in the late 1960s, what would become the St. George congregation met in various places.
Initially, the Greek population in Hartford would travel to the other St. George in New Britain, but seeing as how there was no CTfastrak in 1916, this was an ordeal.
As this community grew in Hartford, there was reason to establish social clubs here, along with a Greek language school that met in a room rented from Loew’s Poli Theater, which was where the MDC building/Bushnell Plaza is on Main Street today. Before creating a church of their own, there were visiting clergy and some attendance at the All Saints’ Church at 1332 1/2 Broad Street. Don’t bother to look. It’s not there. Removed and replaced by the Learning Corridor. All Saints’ eventually moved to Scarborough Street, in spitting distance of West Hartford.
For the Greek church, there was the rental of an Episcopal Church at Park and Washington in the 1920s, then the rental of the Baptist Church two blocks south at 182 Jefferson Street in the 1930s. They bought the latter building a couple years later. The building at Jefferson and Washington is now owned by the Salvation Army.
While at the Jefferson Street site, they purchased 471 Campfield Avenue — further south and two miles away — as the parish house. In 1950, they purchased the property at 433 Fairfield Avenue. This is almost a directly line from the parish house, on the other side of Goodwin Park, almost in Wethersfield.
It took another fourteen years before construction would begin on the building many recognize today because of the annual Greek Festival.
Despite the pandemic, they held a modified version of the festival in 2020 and 2021. No dancing the last two years, just a Greek food drive-thru.
For those unable to read anything written on the building — they still offer Greek language lessons today.
