Name: St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church
Location: Corpus Christi, Texas Metropolis of Denver
Founded: 1948
Clergy: Fr. John Haby (Holy Cross ‘11)
Size: about 130 families
E–mail: [email protected]
Web: www.saint–nicholas.org
CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas – No one knows when the first Greek Orthodox Christians may have come to this city in South Texas, even for a short while.
Perhaps there were Greek sailors on the crew of Spanish explorer Alonso Alvarez de Pineda in 1519 when he discovered the bay and settlement on Roman Catholic feast day of Corpus Christi (Body of Christ).
Or perhaps seafaring Greeks were drawn to this port city in the 19th or early 20th century that ranks as the fifth largest port in the United States (in terms of tonnage).
Whenever it was, by May 1936 there were enough Greek Orthodox people present to form a temporary committee to look into organizing a parish under the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese, according to a parish history.
The committee changed its name to the Delphi Social and Educational Club and started fund–raising for a Greek afternoon school. On April 14, 1944, the organization purchased property near downtown and eventually built the church that continues to serve the community.
Meanwhile, the community met at a local Episcopal church with visiting priests officiating the services.
The parish was incorporated in 1948 with George H. Plomarity as the president. He was the father of Archon Harry Plomarity, retired director of the Port of Corpus Christi who also served as parish council president and has been a long-time member of the Archdiocesan Council and St. Photios National Shrine board.
The Plomarity family has been actively involved in the parish to the present day.
The church received its charter from the Archdiocese in 1950.
Construction of the house of worship began in 1950 and Fr. John Zografos of St. Sophia Church in San Antonio, also a noted iconographer, was commissioned in April to create the icons. Fr. Zografos also officiated at the laying of the cornerstone ceremony later that month. In December of that year, Fr. Emmanuel Panos of St. George Church in Shreveport, La., was assigned as the first parish priest.
In December 1971, Bishop John of Thermon consecrated the church, assisted by the Very Rev. Ambrose Giannoukos, the parish priest and the longest-serving pastor; Fr. Nicholas Triantafilou, then-dean of Annunciation Cathedral in Houston, Deacon John Stehling and Peter C. Anton Jr. (the present Metropolitan Tarasios of Buenos Aires), both from San Antonio.
Changing demographics
Because of immigration in recent decades from Eastern Europe, parish membership now includes those of Russian, Ukrainian, Romanian and Bulgarian Orthodox background. Some members are of Hispanic heritage. However, there are many descendants of the founding families, and also recent immigrants from the island of Karpathos, with a large number from the village of Spoa on the island. Several are Greek restaurant owners in the city.
The city has a large U.S. Navy presence, with the Corpus Christi Naval Air Station located a few miles outside the city and naval ships based at Ingleside.
A navy chaplain from one of the ships, Fr. David Pratt, served as the visiting priest in 1999.
Fr. John Hayden (Haby), the current pastor, has ministered to the parish since 2013, having previously been the assistant priest at Assumption Church in Springfield, Ohio.
A Texas native, he grew up in Rock Springs, near San Antonio and had graduated from Texas Tech University in Lubbock. For several years he worked as a nuclear engineer at the Commanche Peak Nuclear Power Plant in Granbury, about 35 miles southwest of Fort Worth.
Coming from a Protestant background, he converted to Orthodoxy in the late 1990s, following the death of his 6-year-old daughter in a car accident.
He describes his ministry at St. Nicholas as “to maximize the Liturgical Life of the church, love all the parishioners especially in their time of need and maximize the Stewardship along with the growth of the parish.”
One of his major tasks is to organize activities for the young people of the community. There is a Sunday school with about 15 students in four grades.
The parish is on the stewardship program, but its main source of revenue is the annual Greek festival the first weekend in November.
St. Nicholas is the only Orthodox Christian parish in Corpus Christi, a city of about 300,000, which is the gateway to Padre Island National Seashore, sometimes referred to as the “Texas Riviera.”