Our Lady of the Greeks of Australia – 11 Churches celebrate the Assumptiontranslated

Sometimes need, sometimes hope for a better life, and sometimes need and hope together, drove tens of thousands of Greeks to immigrate to the Fifth Continent as early as the 19th century, and in much greater numbers after the Second World War. Faced with the hardships and trials they faced in Australia, the immigrants drew spiritual strength from their faith in Almighty God. Leaving their homeland, they had taken with them sacred images of Christ, the Virgin Mary and the Saints of our Church. Some of them were kept in the corners of their houses, in the iconostasis, while others were entrusted to the Greek Orthodox churches, which, over the decades, constantly increased in number and became centers of the social, cultural and, of course, ecclesiastical life of those who lived far from their homeland.

Indeed, because Hellenism has always had an inexhaustible love and sincere devotion to the holy person of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Greek immigrants dedicated many of the numerous churches they built throughout Australia to her, the loving Mother and source of strength, hope and consolation.…