St. Michael’s roots go back to 1898, making it the second Orthodox church established in North America. That’s older than most Baptist churches in Southeast Texas.
The story starts with immigrant families. Syrian, Lebanese, and Greek Christians arrived in Beaumont in the late 1800s, drawn by work in the port and timber industries. They worshiped in homes at first. No priest, no building, just families gathering to pray and keep the faith their grandparents knew.
By the early 1900s, they’d formed a proper parish. But on Ascension Thursday in 1919, a storm destroyed the church building. Anyone who’s lived through a Gulf Coast hurricane knows what that means, not just wind damage but total loss. The community rebuilt by 1920 on Ewing Street. They weren’t going anywhere.
One priest from those early decades deserves mention: Fr. Nicholas Nahas. He translated the services into English, which was radical at the time. Most Orthodox parishes in America still used Arabic, Greek, or Slavonic exclusively. His translations are preserved at the Antiochian Village Library in Pennsylvania. That work mattered because it meant converts could actually understand what they were praying, and the children of immigrants wouldn’t lose the faith because of a language barrier.
The church moved to its current location at 3055 North 15th Street in 1953. Metropolitan Archbishop Antony Bashir came down from New York to dedicate the building on November 29 of that year. For a small parish in Southeast Texas to host the Metropolitan was a big deal. It signaled that Beaumont wasn’t just a mission outpost anymore.
A Regional Hub
St. Michael didn’t just serve Beaumont. For decades, priests from the parish traveled to surrounding areas where Orthodox families had no church of their own. They’d drive to Port Arthur, Orange, Lake Charles. Celebrate liturgy in someone’s living room or a rented hall. Baptize babies, hear confessions, bring communion to the sick.
This missionary work helped establish other parishes across the South. It’s easy to forget now, when you can find an Orthodox church in most cities, but there was a time when St. Michael was it for hundreds of miles. If you were Orthodox and lived anywhere in the Golden Triangle, this was your parish.
What This History Means
When you walk into St. Michael today, you’re standing where generations stood before you. The building’s been here since 1953, but the community’s been here since 1898. That’s continuity. That’s what we mean when we talk about Holy Tradition, not just ideas passed down, but actual people in an actual place keeping the faith.
The parish has changed, of course. Most members now aren’t Syrian or Lebanese. Many are converts from Baptist or Methodist backgrounds. Some have no church background at all. But we’re still doing what those first families did: gathering to worship, raising children in the faith, supporting each other through hurricanes and job losses and everything else life in Southeast Texas throws at you.
If you’re visiting or inquiring about Orthodoxy, you’re part of a story that started 126 years ago in Beaumont. The church those immigrant families built, literally built, with their own hands and money, is still here. Still Orthodox. Still offering the same mysteries the Apostles offered.
Come see for yourself.
