Yorkshire Greeks
Greek School
A Brief Community History
The establishment of the Community was necessitated by the increasing number of Greeks and Greek-Cypriots residing in Yorkshire since the 1950s, who hitherto had been travelling to Manchester to attend Liturgies, be wedded and have their children baptized.
In the first two years of the Community, Divine Liturgy was held only once a month at the aforementioned Anglican Church, and it was served by the same archimandrite Methodios, still priest of the Manchester Greek Orthodox Community.
On July 1st, 1964, priest-monk Kyriakos Ioannidis was appointed as the first permanent priest of the Community, and, as a matter of fact, Divine Liturgy was celebrated every Sunday, still at the Anglican Church of St Matthew. This was the main reason for the establishment of the first Ladies Auxiliary Committee with Helen Papaioannou (senior) at chair, Maria Sendoucary as vice chair, Maroula Mastihi treasurer, and Christalla Sopfocleous, Evdokia Nicolaidi, Christalla Metaxa, Elli Evdociou and Eleni Papaioannou (junior) members. The Committee’s main job was to clean and prepare the Church before and after the services and Community functions, but they also undertook fundraising actions to assist the Community Fund.
Following the purchase of the 24 Hilton Place property in 1964 as the priest’s house (very close to the nowadays Church), a sign of the Community’s improving stature, the late Archbishop of Thyateira and Great Britain Athinagoras Kokkinakis (1963-1979), on his first visit to the newly established Community on Sunday 31/01/1965, urged the Committee to acquire their own Church.
His blessings and the Committee’s strenuous efforts under the chairmanship of Neophytos Ioannou resulted in the purchase of the 57 Harehills Avenue Methodist Chapel, built in 1903, for £7,000 in 1965. Purchase would not have materialized had it not been for All Saints, London, Greek Orthodox Community’s generous contribution of £6,000 as an interest-free ten years repayment loan, and the Community members’ voluntary offers.
A year later, Sunday 30th January, 1966, on the very day of the Holy Three Hierarchs Feast, and following the redecoration of its interior as an Orthodox church and the acquisition of the appropriate equipment, the Church opened its gates for the first Orthodox Divine Liturgy officiated by the late Archbishop Athinagoras Kokkinakis. This is why the Church was named after the Holy Three Hierarchs, while six and a half years later, Saturday June 17th and Sunday 18th, 1972, it was fully consecrated as such by the same Archbishop.
On December 1st, 1966, the first Community priest was transferred to London, and he was replaced by archimandrite Sofronios Papadopoulos, who served as the second Community priest for an impressive thirty-three years (1966-1999), in cooperation with contemporary Executive Committees chaired by Neophytos Ioannou (1966-1975), Christos Mastichis (1976-1997) and Costas Erodotou (1997-1999), along with the Auxiliary Sisterhood Committees headed by Helen Papaioannou (senior, 1964-1977), Maria Sendoukari (1977-1979), Ellie Evdokiou (1979-1981), Panagiota Patsallou (1981-1992) and Evdokia Nikolaidou (1992-1999). During their terms, the Church was redecorated and further equipped, the Community School was founded, the Community Centre with its attachments (kitchen, toilets) was extended, refurbished and beautified, the churchyard and the gardens were beautified, the Church and the Community Centre buildings were rewired and a new heating system was installed.
In specific, Greek School, after its infant steps as a Leeds & Bradford Greek School operating at St Matthew’s Church, Chapel Allerton (1963-1966), soon moved in the premises of the newly acquired Church. Headed by Fr Sofronios Papadopoulos (1966-1977), Dr Christos Hadjicharitou (1977-1995) and Tony Naslas (1995-1996) it gradually sprawled across the wider Yorkshire area with departments at Bradford, York, Scunthorpe, Wakefield, Sheffield, Grimsby, and Huddersfield. 1996 onwards, under the chairmanship of Dr Chris Varnavides (1996-2013), Barry Paschali (2013-2019) and Dr Anna Trakoli (2019-todate), the School operates in Leeds only, and since 2019 it has moved in the Community property of 31 Avenue Crescent-behind the Church. The School is supervised by the Central Educational Committee of the Holy Archdiocese of Thyateira and Great Britain, also standing in cooperation with the Cypriot Educational Mission and the Office of the Greek Educational Co-ordinator in London.
As for the Community Centre, on Monday June 9th, 1986, twenty four years after the establishment of the Community, Methodios Fougias, the archimandrite who laid the Community’s spiritual foundations in 1962, inaugurated, as Archbishop of Thyateira and Great Britain, its extension, materialized mainly through a £20,000 grant from the Leeds City Council.
1999 onwards, following Fr Sofronios’s retirement (🕆10/07/2011, Paphos), Community Church has been served by Fr Konstantinos Karaiskakis (2001-2002), Fr Samuel Kouspogenis-Savva (2002-2014), Fr David Carnely (2003-2012), Fr Michael Petrakis (2014-2018), and Fr Stavros Bozos (2018-todate), while contemporary Executive Committees have been chaired by Antonios (Tony) Pavlou (2000-2004), Kikis Kyriacou (2004-2008), Andreas (Andros) Christou (2008-2010), Costas Tsakirides (2010-2012), Dr Christos Hadjicharitou (2012-2018), and, Pavlos (Paul) Kavazy (2018-todate), along with the respective Auxiliary Sisterhood Committees headed by Katerina Theodorou (1999-2008), Letha Ioannou (2008-2012), and Helen Papaioannou (2012-todate).
1999 onwards, Community Executive Committees have undertaken significant interior and exterior improvements of the Church and the Community Centre buildings such as the refurbished toilets, the access for disabled (ramps), the new roof, the microphones, the frescoing etc, with funding from Community members, Council subsidies, and the selling of the 24 Hilton Place first Community property.
Significant for the Community’s establishment, evolution and demography have been local or international historical events such as the 1956 deportation of the Greeks of Egypt, the 1960 Cyprus independence and its accession to the British Commonwealth, the 1974 Turkish invasion to Cyprus, the 1981 Greece accession to the then EEC, the 1992 European Union establishment, and the 2009 cataclysmic results of the 2008 international economic crisis upon Greece and Cyprus.
Currently, the Greek Orthodox Community of Leeds boasts almost five hundred registered families, which altogether constitute a thriving part of Leeds and its surroundings. Except for its members, the Community also embraces hundreds of Orthodox Greek and Greek-Cypriot scholars, professionals and students, who temporarily abide in Leeds and its surroundings, and, in so doing, they considerably contribute to the preservation and evolution of its Greek Orthodox character and ethos.