Roots of Saint Sophia Greek Orthodox Cathedral / Remembering "the Village"

Roots of Saint Sophia Greek Orthodox Cathedral, also, Remembering "the Village". Midcity at the Crossroads. , Roots of Saint Sophia Greek Orthodox Cathedral , In 1904 members of Washington, DC's "Greek Colony" , mostly recently arrived immigrant men , held the city's first Greek Orthodox church service above a warehouse on Indiana Avenue near Seventh Street, NW. In the years that followed, they held religious services in various rented locations including the former Adas Israel synagogue, then at Sixth and G Streets, NW. Yearning for a home of their own, the congregation purchased land in 1913 at what was a northeast corner of Eighth and L Streets, approximately where the door to the Convention Center is on the block to your left., Seven years later, with a congregation of 500, Bishop (later Archbishop) Alexander Rodostolou laid the cornerstone for Saint Sophia, the first Greek Orthodox church built in the Washington, DC Metropolitan Area. The basement was completed first, and services were held there staring in 1921. Three years later the entire edifice, with its Byzantine style interior, was dedicated., During World War II, hundreds of sons of Saint Sophia served in the U.S. armed forces, and 14 paid the supreme sacrifice. Thousands of servicemen and women of the period enjoyed Saint Sophia's hospitality in USO-type programs provided by the parish., The Saint Sophia parish remained on Eight Street for 34 years, with Father (later Bishop) Aimilianos Laloussis serving as pastor for most of that time. By 1955 the congregation had outgrown its building, so the church was sold to Rehobeth Baptist Congregation, and the parish moved to its current home on upper Massachusetts Avenue NW. The original immigrant congregation had changed considerably by the time of the move, when the majority were American families of Greek descent., Remembering "the Village" , Two churches on Eighth Street, the Greek Orthodox Saint Sophia's and the Syrian-Greek Orthodox St. George's once anchored a thriving community here known fondly as "the Village." Homes and businesses of European-immigrant and native-born white and African American families surrounded the churches. Seventh and Ninth Streets supplied life's necessities and small luxuries, from groceries to billiards. Although the Walter E. Washington Convention Center covered three blocks of Eight Street, the Village was torn down piecemeal long before the center opened in 2003., When Vasiliki (Billie) Stathes Wills was a young girl in 1932, her Village neighbors included a policeman, tailors, carpenters, cooks, chauffeurs, laborers, and entrepreneurs. Billie's Greek immigrant father James Stathes owned the Busy Bee Restaurant at Ninth and G. Palestinian immigrant John George owned a restaurant at Seventh and P. Russian-Jewish immigrant William Cafritz ran the District Grocery Store at Ninth and L. Across the street at 811 L, the Italian American physician Fred Repetti tended to neighborhood families at his home/office. And the Knights of Pythias hosted community activities in their elegant hall on Ninth., For Billie and her pals, fun meant daily visits to the Carnegie Library for playing on its grounds. And, without family automobiles of their own, they found the four gasoline stations at Eighth and M fascinating. "We would go to the corner every day to look at the marvelous cars that stopped for gas," she recalled., By the mid-1950s most of those who could afford to had moved out of downtown, and the two orthodox churches followed.