The St. Athanasius The Great, Greek Orthodox Church is located on Massachusetts Avenue, a major thoroughfare, in the center of the town of Arlington, Massachusetts. When originally constructed in 1841 for the First Universalist Church of Arlington the wood-frame building was a modest box-like structure, 56' x 46', designed in the Greek Revival style and painted white. Unencumbered by neighboring structures, the church was visible from all sides. Early views show a row of mature elm and maple trees lining Massachusetts Ave. The trees are long since gone and later 19th century infill construction adjacent to the church now focus emphasis on the main facade. The present elaborate Romanesque Revival appearance of the church is the result of alterations made in 1860 after the designs of Boston 'area arch- itect, Thomas W. Silloway.
Revovations included replacement of the of original simple tower with an ornate three stage tower and 90' high spire: - relocation of the structure back from Massachusetts Avenue on its lot and addition of a six foot high raised basement and the present two stage projecting frontispiece. Due to structural damage incurred in the 1938 hurricane the spire portion of the tower was subsequently removed and the present seven foot high dome constructed. The remainder of the tower's ornamentation, however, remains intact. The main body of the church is rectangular in plan, 4-bays wide on its side elevations, rises 2-stories from its raised basement with horizontal sheathing at the basement level and clapboards above.
Architectural detailing includes a full entablature with dentils, channelled corner pilasters (original) and drip hood mouldings and bracketted sills at 11 andoarip hod the windows (1860 additions). A low gable roof covers the building. The 2-story, 3-bay projecting frontispiece repeats the major trim elements of the main body in more ostentatious and heavier manner including a full entablature with a raking modillion course and convex frieze. The shallow central bay is composed of monumental composite columns, rising from panelled pedestals and supporting the entablature and pediment. - Filling the space created by this frame, the double door entrance consists of a 28mpanelled rectangular section surrounded by an eared architrave, surmöunted by a circular light trimmed with a heavy projecting moulding and crowned with an scroll-like icanthus leaf motif.
The flushboarded flanking bays have bold chanelled corner pilasters, also rising from pånelled pedistals, and are marked at mid-height by a flat circular motif. Above the frontispiece rises an elaborately decorated wood tower constructed in three stages. The first stage is square in plan on a short clapboarded base. The front and side faces display large blind oculi infilled with a painted Greek cross surrounded by scroll moulding and framed by corner quoins and an irregular overhanging cornice. The second stage belfry is identical on each face; mirroring in smaller scale the central entrance bay. An arched opening with fixed louvers spanned at the base by a low balustrade is flanked by columns supporting a full entablature and pediment.
The second stage houses a bronze bell, exceeding four feet NPS Form 10-900-a (3-82) United States Department of the Interior National Park Service National Register of Historic Places Inventory - Nomination Form OMB No. 1024-0018 Exp. 10-31-84 Far NPS use only recaived date entered Continuation sheet Greek Orthodox Church Item number 7 Page 1 in diameter and cast in 1867 by Henry M. Hooper Company of Boston. Sumptuous detailing characterizes the octagonal third stage with arched windows openings separated by columns and finished with a complex entablature with rows of dentils and cables. Finally, the simple flushboarded dome, seven feet high, is crowned with an undecorated wooden cross. The interior of the church is simple in plan and detailina. In 1926 a brick one-story parish house was added to the rear of the church.
Although the Greek Orthodox Church has been altered and moved, these chanaes occurred 123 years ago and have greatly added to the architectural sian- ificance of the structure. It will soon undergo a major stabilization funded by a Community Development Block Grant and private donations. Part 8 Continued After examination by a committee appointed for the purpose of a new minister, and which met at the hotel (Arlinaton House, now gone), Mr. Frederic H. Hedge was chosen minister. Hedae, a Unitarian, was not popular with the Universalists, who decried his liberal views, echewing those of Rev. Mr. Hedge struggled to keep the congregation toqether without success. He resigned under pressure in 1835. Hedge's successor, Mr.
David Damon, him- self a Unitarian, could not heal the rift and in 1840 the Universalists, after a bitter dispute as to which faction should stay and which should leave, departed to found their own parish. Congregationalists, or Trinitarians, they acquired land opposite Academy Street on Massachusetts Avenue, and set about constructing their own church structure consecrated January 20, 1841, which survives to this day (in somewhat altered form) as the Greek Orthodox Church of St. Anthanasius The Great(subject of this nomination). The four separate sub-units of the original First Parish Church co-existed in relative harmony for the duration of the 19th century, a period of relative colorless religious observance in the Town. The Baptists went on to construct several buildings, the most recent of which was built in 1903 and occupies a site at the corner of Ramsdell Court and Mass.
Avenue and Pleasant Street (destroyed by fire 1975). Durina its history a succession of distinguished ministers preached from its pulpit. The first of these was Josiah Crosby Waldo (184l to 1847). While it is not necessary to recite the list, it is to note that in with the humanist views of the sect, these men all played civic roles in their days, from editing newspaners to serving on School Committees, trusteeshios of Bohooa committe universities (William S. Gibbs, Tufts University 1860-66), to activity in the movement of Christian Science (Harry Hay Fisher 1893-1909). The Greek Orthodox congregation which took overthe church structure in 1964, like many sects before it, had never had its own place of worship in Arlington. Rather families of Greek extraction had worshipped at 14 Magazine Street in 8.
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