Кафедральный собор святого Георгия (Вичита)

Our Church in Wichita
The founders of what would eventually become St George Orthodox Christian Cathedral began arriving in Wichita from the Middle East as early as 1895. Most of them came from the county of Marj’ayoun in south Lebanon (then a part of Ottoman Syria). The spiritual needs of these earliest immigrants were served by visiting missionary priests, most notably Father Nicola Yanney, with divine services and sacraments celebrated in the homes of the faithful. As the community grew, Father Nicola encouraged Wichita’s Orthodox Christians to purchase a building for use as a church temple and was pleased when negotiations began in early 1918 for the purchase of a vacant white, clap-board church building located at 218 South Handley. Though without the services of a priest, the community worked diligently to prepare the building for Orthodox worship in time for the celebration of Pascha, May 5, 1918. As the congregation grew, a larger church was needed. On Christmas Eve 1948 the congregation gathered for festal services in the recently completed parish hall at the church’s new location on South Walnut Street, and on Pascha 1949 the first divine services were celebrated in the newly completed St George Church at 210 South Walnut, a facility which would serve the community until 1990.

Metropolitan PHILIP broke and blessed the ground for the present church temple, located at 7515 East 13th Street, on the Sunday of the Myrrhbearing Women, May 14, 1989. The first divine services in the East 13th Street church were celebrated at midnight for the Nativity of Christ on December 25, 1990. Metropolitan PHILIP returned to Wichita to consecrate the 13th Street church on the Sunday of the Myrrhbearing Women, April 21, 1991, and at that time named it the Cathedral for the Southwest Region. With the formal establishment of the Diocese of Wichita and Mid-America on December 15, 2004, St. George became the Cathedral of the Diocese of Mid-America
(DOWAMA) and the seat of the Bishop of Wichita.

The priests who have served as interim or full-time priests are Father Shakrallah Shadid (1921), Father Elias El-Khouri (1921-25), Father George Cohlmia (1933-47), Father Athanasios Rihbani (1947-48), Father Antony Woolf (1948-49), Father Thomas Skaff (1949-50), Father John Matthiesen (1950-1963), Father Theodore Ziton (1963-66), Father Karlo (now Bishop Mark of the OCA) Forsberg (1967), Father Elias Armistead (1967-68), Father Paul Nemr (1968-77) assisted by Father John Matthiesen (1974-75), Father Anthony Scott (1977-87), Father Basil (now Bishop Basil) Essey (1987 until his consecration to the episcopacy in Wichita on May 31, 1992) assisted by Father Andre Issa (1992-93), and Father Paul O’Callaghan (1993 to the present) assisted by Father Stephen Ziton (1994-96), Father Paul Hodge (1997 to 2000) and Father James Shadid (2000-present). Since his retirement from full-time parish ministry in 1998 Father Constantine (‘Dean’) Dimas, a priest of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese, also serves at the Cathedral.

Адрес:
7515 East 13th
Wichita, KS 67206-1223
(316) 636-4676
Fax (316) 636-5628
V. Rev. Fr. Paul O’Callaghan, Dean
e-mail: vrev@stgeorgecathedral.net
Fr. James Shadid, Associate
e-mail: fatherjames@stgeorgecathedral.net  

Источник: www.stgeorgecathedral.net