Orthodox Churches in Kentucky

Greeks lived in Kentucky by the turn of the twentieth century. A 2009 state-by-state survey of first Orthodox parishes lists a Greek parish in Louisville, dated 1927, as the state's first, though an earlier one may have existed. Assumption Greek Orthodox Church in Louisville dates its founding to 1925. Lebanese and Syrian immigrants formed another Louisville community in the early 1900s and dedicated a former synagogue on East Jefferson Street in November 1934. The building was demolished in 1962 for Interstate 65, and the parish, now St. Michael Orthodox Church, consecrated a new church in 1972. In Lexington, refugees from Triglia in Asia Minor built a church in 1948 named for the icon Panagia Pantovasilissa (Holy Mother Queen of All).

In 1978 the Antiochian Archdiocese listed Lexington among six cities with mission potential, and six local families formed what became Saint Andrew Orthodox Church two years later. In Nicholasville, David and Rozanne Rucker, who had been Protestant missionaries in Hong Kong, formed a mission of the Evangelical Orthodox Church in 1996. The mission entered the Orthodox Church in America in February 2002 as St. Athanasius Orthodox Church and in 2024 rented space in Berea for its first daughter mission, St. Nina.

Louisville and Lexington each have Antiochian and Greek Orthodox parishes, while the Orthodox Church in America is present in Nicholasville and Berea; Bowling Green and Frankfort also have parishes. After the fall of Communism, St. Michael received Orthodox Christians from Bulgaria, Romania, Russia, Serbia and Ukraine.