St Nicholas Antiochian Orthodox Church East Melbourne

St Nicholas Antiochian Orthodox Church has served the Antiochian and other Orthodox in Melbourne for seventy-five years. From its beginnings in 1932 until the mid-1950s, St Nicholas was the sole religious and community centre for many immigrants from Lebanon and elsewhere in the Middle East

Over the years, St. Nicholas extended a welcoming arm to other newly arrived Orthodox such as the Russian, Ukrainian, Macedonian, Bulgarian, Serbian and Coptic communities. They would worship at St. Nicholas until they were able to establish their own churches.

St Nicholas continues to represent Orthodoxy to the wider Christian and Australian communities. It provides
a pathway for people to learn about Orthodoxy and to enter the Orthodox Church. In doing so it projects a pan-Orthodox vision of the Church, enabling it to extend and broaden the mission of Orthodoxy in Australia.

This role has made St Nicholas possibly the most well known of all Orthodox churches in Melbourne.

Beginnings of the Antiochian Orthodox Community in Melbourne

The first Lebanese immigrants began arriving in Australia in the 1880s and 1890s. By the early years of the twentieth century, a small colony had settled in the north-eastern corner of Melbourne. These families often worked together as hawkers, shopkeepers or wholesalers as well as sharing simple social activities.

These lay people brought Bibles, prayer books, icons, candles and incense for private worship in their homes where they would read their Orthodox prayer books and chant services.
By the early 1890s they would meet for communal worship in the Mission Hall in Spring Street, Melbourne which was made available to them by the Anglican Sisters of the Mission to the Streets and Lanes. In this way lay people sustained their faith for many decades before they had their own Orthodox churches and priests.

The Antiochian Orthodox Community helped to establish the Greek Orthodox Church of the Holy Annunciation, East Melbourne in 1902, which they attended until the arrival of their own priest from Lebanon in 1931.