Orthodox Churches in Iowa

Iowa's first Orthodox parishes date to 1914, when Greek immigrants founded St. Demetrios in Waterloo and Syrian and Lebanese immigrants opened St. George Church in Cedar Rapids; a state-by-state survey counts the two as tied. The Orthodox community in Cedar Rapids had been visited in 1899 by Archimandrite Raphael Hawaweeny, later St. Raphael. The U.S. Census counted 18 Greeks in Iowa in 1900, and many early arrivals returned to Greece, though by the 1920s most stayed.

In Sioux City, the Orthodox Observer reports, more than a thousand Greeks working in meatpacking traveled a hundred miles for occasional services until 1918, when more than five hundred attended the meeting that began Holy Trinity's history. The Observer calls its 1925 church the oldest Greek Orthodox church building in Iowa. Other Greek parishes were founded in Mason City (Holy Transfiguration, 1918), Des Moines (St. George, 1928), Cedar Rapids (St. John the Baptist, 1938) and Dubuque (St. Elias, 1956).

Several newer parishes began as missions. St. George in Cedar Rapids dates the Iowa City mission that became St. Raphael to 1996, while St. George in Des Moines dates it to 2001. In 2010 families who had commuted to St. Raphael began an Antiochian mission in Davenport, St. Nicholas the Wonderworker. The Orthodox Church in America founded missions in Pella (2002) and Ames (2013). Des Moines gained a Serbian mission in 2004.