Orthodox Christianity came to Texas with immigrants in the late 1800s. Syrian and Lebanese families settled in Houston and Beaumont. Greeks came too. They brought their faith with them, worshiping first in homes before organizing parishes.
The earliest documented Orthodox presence in Texas was right here in Southeast Texas. An Orthodox community existed in Beaumont by 1898. That makes it one of the oldest Orthodox communities in North America, second only to St. Nicholas Cathedral in New York. Think about that. While the oil boom was just beginning and Spindletop was still three years away, Orthodox families were already gathering for liturgy in Beaumont.
These early communities faced real challenges. No church buildings. Often no priest. Families would gather in homes, pray the services they knew, and wait for a traveling priest to visit. When Father Nicholas Nahas served the Beaumont community, he began translating services into English so the children could understand. This wasn’t about abandoning the faith, it was about keeping it alive in a new land.
Houston’s story runs parallel. St. George Orthodox Church was founded in 1928 by Middle Eastern immigrants, mostly Syrian and Lebanese. For eight years they met wherever they could. In 1936 they dedicated their first building on Chestnut Street. The parish grew. By 1954 they’d purchased property for a larger church. St. George became the mother church for Orthodox life in Houston, eventually sponsoring mission parishes across the metro area.
The pattern repeated across Texas. Immigrant families would settle in a city, organize themselves, secure a priest when they could, and establish a parish. These weren’t just religious communities. They were mutual aid societies, cultural centers, places where Arabic was spoken and the old country wasn’t entirely lost. But they were also American parishes, adapting to Texas life while maintaining the ancient faith.
Antiochian Orthodox Christians, those from Syria and Lebanon, were among the earliest and most active Orthodox communities in Texas. St. George in Houston is explicitly Antiochian. So is our parish here in Beaumont. The Antiochian Archdiocese organized these scattered communities, provided clergy, and helped establish new missions as populations grew and spread.
By the mid-20th century, things started changing. The children and grandchildren of immigrants moved to the suburbs. St. George in Houston began sponsoring mission churches: St. Anthony the Great in Spring in 1982, St. Joseph in West Houston in 1993, Holy Forty Martyrs in Sugar Land in 2001. What had been concentrated ethnic neighborhoods became dispersed Orthodox communities serving both descendants of immigrants and converts.
And converts started coming. People raised Baptist or Methodist or with no church background at all found their way to Orthodox parishes. They discovered something they’d been looking for, ancient worship, continuity with the early Church, a faith that wasn’t constantly reinventing itself. Texas parishes that had been almost entirely Arabic-speaking became English-speaking and multiethnic. The faith didn’t change, but the communities did.
Southeast Texas remained a center of Orthodox life throughout this growth. Beaumont’s parish supported missionary work across the region, providing visiting priests and organizational help as Orthodox populations appeared in smaller towns. The refineries and plants brought workers from all over, including Orthodox Christians looking for a parish.
Today there are Orthodox parishes across Texas, Greek, Antiochian, OCA, and others. Dallas, Fort Worth, Austin, San Antonio, El Paso. Small missions in college towns. The story that began with immigrant families praying in living rooms has become a network of established parishes serving thousands.
What’s remarkable isn’t just that Orthodoxy survived in Texas. It’s that it took root and grew in soil very different from where it started. Texas isn’t Syria or Greece or Russia. But the Divine Liturgy that Syrian families celebrated in Beaumont in 1898 is the same liturgy we celebrate now. The faith those immigrants protected and passed down is the faith we’re still living.
If you visit our parish, you’re participating in a story that goes back more than 125 years in Southeast Texas. You’re joining something that predates most of the churches in Beaumont. That’s not a boast. It’s just history. And it’s still being written.
