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St. George Hellenic Orthodox Church
St. George Hellenic Orthodox Church
(formerly Grace Universalist Church)
1895-1896
c.1930 2008
Building History
The church was built for the Second Universalist Society of Lowell, who built a church on Shattuck Street at the corner of Market Street in 1838. Universalism had come to Lowell in 1826, and its focus was social reform and the treatment of the women and children workers in the mills. After a large influx of immigrants to the Downtown, the parish moved out to the rapidly developing Highlands neighborhood of Lowell.
The former Grace Universalist Church is a Victorian Eclectic-styled church which has elements of Romanesque, Classical revival, and Beaux-Arts architecture. The architect was William Chester Chase from Boston. This 2.5-storied square brick building has a two-towered front façade, a large masonry dome, and an attached vestry to the south of the church. Inside the church, a large circular auditorium is open under the dome with the choir loft over the main entrance in a barrel vault. The choir loft houses a c.1838 George Stevens organ, which was brought from their previous church and refitted with a quartered-oak case designed by the architect of the church.
Rafael Guastavino, Jr. designed and constructed the impressive seventy-foot diameter masonry dome using the Tile Arch System, a structural tiling system which was patented by his father Rafael Guastavino Sr. in 1885. The dome of Grace Universalist Church is the largest existing masonry dome in Massachusetts, and one of the earliest designed by the R. Guastavino Fireproof Company. Rafael Guastavino, Jr. went on to install masonry vaulting and domes in many Beaux-Art architectural works, such as the dome over the crossing of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York (1911) and the ceiling of the Registry Hall at Ellis Island (1917). Lowell boasts several buildings with work by Guastavino Company, including the entrance portico of Southwick Hall (1897) located on the South Campus of the University of Massachusetts-Lowell.
The Grace Universalist-Unitarian Church sold the building to the St. George Hellenic Orthodox Society in 1973. The St. George Parish had been formed in 1928, and they occupied the former Worthen Baptist Church from 1928 until a fire destroyed the building in 1973. This church was renovated for Greek Orthodox use, including erecting an iconostasis and the addition of Orthodox Iconography “written” by famed iconographer George Filippakis.
The St. George Hellenic Orthodox Church continues to hold services the church, and uses the attached vestry for church functions. They plan to restore the George Stevens organ (c.1838) and hold organ recitals in the church.