In the Beginning.... 

 

(This is a supplement to the parish’s history as it appears

in its regular web site:

http://www.stdemetriosweston.org/home)

 

In February 1959, Dr. Demetre Decaneas of Weston and Angelo Bassett of Waban met at a social gathering and talked about something that had been on their minds for some time. Driving to the Boston Cathedral, to Cambridge or Watertown to go to church was getting to be too much for their young families. Besides, the city was expanding west.

 

Should they see if there was an interest among the Greek Americans of the western suburbs to start a church closer to their homes?

 

After initial contacts showed promising results, they started raising money and looking for new names to add to the list of potential parishioners. As the following interviews show, these parish pioneers not only passed the word around but started going through the area’s local phone books looking for residents with “Greek-sounding surnames” to invite. The original 10-20 core member families soon doubled and then tripled. The rest is history.

 

What added to the effort’s momentum was the discovery by Decaneas and Bassett, independently of each other, of a small church for sale at Newton Lower Falls, the 70-year-old Methodist Episcopal Church of Newton-Wellesley. The Greek Orthodox Archdiocese, over the protestations of some of the downtown churches, soon gave its blessing for the group to purchase the property.

 

The Archdiocese saw in new parishes the potential of building an American Greek Orthodox Church that would transcend the original immigrant church, recalls first Parish Council President Spyros (Spike) Gavris. Then Archbishop Iakovos, a close friend and a "thinker," Gavris said, was "depending on the new generation to create an American Greek spirit." The parish's direction and identity were a major council preoccupation, Gavris said.

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The first liturgy of the “Newton Wellesley Greek Orthodox Church at 2342 Washington St., Newton Lower Falls 62, Massachusetts,” as its letterhead said, was held June 14, 1959.

 

The church interior had been repaired and freshened up, although it was small and had no center aisle, and the outside had been newly landscaped.  The basement was in great need of repair, with holes in the floor covered by strategic placement of rugs and furniture. And the sanctuary had no iconostasis. Fortunately, the Archangels Greek Orthodox Parish of Stamford, CT, which was looking to upgrade its facilities, offered its old iconostasis to the new church.

 

Parishioners George Makris, John Condakes (with his truck and driver), Chris Anton and John Lucas offered to go pick it up. But Helen Makris, who was pregnant with her son William, recalls her husband George would not leave until she gave birth. Once that happened the four men went and three days later they had delivered and installed the new iconostasis.

 

In November 1959, Deacon Anastasios (Ernie) Blougouras of Dover, NH, was assigned to be the first regular priest of the church. The naming of the new church was scheduled for December 12, 1959 (see Fr. Blougouras Archive in the Family Mementos section of this site). After several ballots, the name of St. Demetrios was chosen. And the regular life of the new parish was started.

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Angelo Bassett wrote in a newspaper article at the time that the story of this church was "like the story of America itself....a pioneering spirit was needed, bolstered by intelligence and persistence" to make the new church a reality. But "love and devotion was in every corner" and "from the very beginning, these neighbors, many of whom did not know each other, became friends."
 

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