The history of Orthodox Christianity in the Conemaugh Valley starts with the Lebanese immigrants who brought their Holy Faith with them from the “Old Country.” The first Orthodox immigrants began to arrive in the Johnstown area during the 1860’s; however, the first large wave of immigrants came during the World Depression of the 1880’s. The group of immigrants settled in Minersville, one of the former boroughs, which was eventually consolidated to form the City of Johnstown in 1889. Whenever traveling priests were available, they gathered together in houses to celebrate the Divine Liturgy, though often the Divine Services were not held on Sundays. The community suffered, along with the rest of the city, in the Great Flood of 1889. Thankfully, the community survived and would soon be strengthened by the large numbers of immigrants that would join their small group.

Around the turn of the century, a larger influx of Lebanese immigrants arrived in Johnstown from the contiguous villages in the county of El Kura, the Orthodox Christian mountain stronghold east of Tripoli. The immigrants had fled Lebanon to avoid mandatory conscription in which they would have been forced to fight other Christians and dissidents in the Ottoman Empire. The immigrants made their way to New York City, and then eventually traveled to Johnstown on the nation’s railways.  Upon settling in Johnstown, the immigrants immediately moved into the merchant class, becoming peddlers and opening family-owned stores. The mission community continued to celebrate the Divine Services whenever a visiting priest was available.   

In 1904, Bishop Raphael Hawaweeny of Brooklyn, later to be canonized a saint, along with Johnstown’s Orthodox Church Faithful, established the parish of St. Mary. The parish became a part of St. Raphael’s diocese, the Diocese of Brooklyn, in the ethnically based American diocese under the Russian Orthodox Archbishop of New York and ultimately under the jurisdiction of the Patriarch of Moscow. The Diocese of Brooklyn served the Syro-Arab Orthodox Christians in North America. Within a year, St. Raphael assigned the Rt. Rev. Michael Saba Curry to be the first pastor of the newly founded parish and he remained in service until his death in 1932. The parish community served Johnstown and the surrounding areas including Altoona, Connellsville, Greensburg, Mt. Pleasant, and Portage. Moreover, the parish served Orthodox Christians of other ethnic ancestries until they were able to establish their own parishes in Johnstown. The Divine Services were celebrated on a regular basis in parishioners’ homes and other makeshift and temporary places of worship, until the first church was built in 1911. The church building was located on Chestnut Street in the Cambria City section of Johnstown.  

The young parish entered tough times in the 1910s for various reasons. The great flu epidemic of 1914 killed scores of parishioners. Secondly, there was turmoil across the entire Diocese of Brooklyn following St. Raphael’s death in 1915. In 1914, Metropolitan Germanos Shehadi came to the United States to collect funds for an agricultural school in his own diocese of Zahle. However, after the death of St. Raphael, Shehadi claimed to be the representative of the Patriarch of Antioch. Those who desired to be under the jurisdiction of the Church of Antioch formed new parishes under Metropolitan Shehadi, while many of those who did not believe that Shehadi was the rightful representative stayed faithful to the Church of Moscow. A significant faction of St. Mary parishioners followed Metropolitan Shehadi and formed the parish of St. Demetrios in 1917, which was located in the Woodvale section of Johnstown. St. Mary Parish stayed under the jurisdiction of Moscow and was under the See of Bishop Aftimios Ofiesh, the official successor of St. Raphael. 

The Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 brought increased confusion to the situation in America. The Russian Orthodox Church, under heavy attack, was barely able to sustain itself, let alone provide for the numerous ethnic dioceses in North America. In 1920, Archbishop Tikhon (later to be consecrated a saint), the Patriarch of Moscow, issued a decree that all of the Orthodox Christians in the United States should seek immediate refuge from whichever jurisdiction would shield them from the evils of communism. In so doing, St. Tikhon left all matters of jurisdictional debate to the parishes themselves and the diocesan leaders. The parish of St. Demetrios continued under the legitimate jurisdiction of Archbishop Victor Abo-Assaley, the first primate of the Syrian Orthodox Archdiocese of North America, under the Patriarchate of Antioch. In 1927, the Diocese of Brooklyn was granted autocephaly by the Russian Orthodox Church and became the American Orthodox Catholic Church with Archbishop Ofiesh as primate. The parish of St. Mary, one of the parishes sympathetic to the original Russian jurisdiction, moved into the newly formed diocese. In 1930, Archbishop Ofiesh was removed as primate of the autocephalous diocese and was replaced by Bishop Emmanuel Abo-Hatab. As primate of the diocese, Bishop Emmanuel realized that the only way to unite the Middle Eastern Orthodox Christians of North America was to be under the jurisdiction of the Patriarch of Antioch. Bishop Emmanuel worked until his death to ensure the reunification of the two Orthodox Catholic dioceses in North America. In 1933, shortly before Abo-Hatab’s death, the American Orthodox Catholic Church, along with the parish of St. Mary, was canonically released to the Patriarch of Antioch and became a part of the Syrian (Antiochian) Orthodox Archdiocese of North America.

In 1935, Antony Bashir was elected to become the Archbishop and primate of the newly united Antiochian Archdiocese of North America.  It was Metropolitan Anthony who directly merged the two parishes of St. Mary and St. Demetrios of Johnstown in 1937. After the reunification, the two parish bodies, who had remained close during their twenty-year separation, worked for the growth of the united St. Mary Parish. Thus, Johnstown served as an example and was also a hub for the reunification of the various Antiochian Orthodox factions. 

The years that followed brought a new set of challenges for the parish. The many young men of the community who were returning home after World War II began to take an active part in the church’s growth and its activities.  The new needs were met through the introduction of the English language into the liturgical aervices of the church. This proved to be pivotal in the growth of the parish and led to the organization of a young adult club that promoted church life. The prosperity of the church continued and soon the Chestnut Street facility was outgrown. The church building was sold to the growing community of St. George Serbian Orthodox Church and is still in use today.  

In 1961, a new parcel of land was purchased in Upper Yoder Township, Cambria County at 111 Alberta Avenue and the groundbreaking took place on December 7, 1961 following the celebration of a Hierarchical Divine Liturgy under Metropolitan Antony. On Sunday November 17, 1968, the new and present house of worship was dedicated to the glory of God by Metropolitan Philip Saliba to the fulfillment of the spiritual needs of the St. Mary Parish.

In 1977, a new challenge was met by the community. A complete program of beautification of the church interior and exterior was undertaken. New stained-glass windows and icons, in the style of Byzantine art synonymous to the churches of Eastern Christendom, were commissioned and incorporated into the church’s interior. The church grounds were landscaped, and a bulletin board was erected which incorporates the corner stone of the original church building as a dedication to the early pioneers of Orthodoxy in Johnstown.   

Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, the St. Mary Parish Family has continued to realize many dreams in regard to the interior and exterior beautification of our church. From the physical perspective of the building, the parish has completed many projects. The parish has enlarged, re-graded and repaved the parking lot (adding designated parking spaces for the physically challenged), added offices, enlarged and streamlined the kitchen facilities, replaced the roofs on both church and parish home, remodeled the parish home, and remodeled the social hall in 1986 and 2004. In 1994, at the parish’s Ninetieth Anniversary Celebration, His Grace, Bishop Antoun Khouri challenged the parish to complete the dreams of the parishioners’ ancestors by providing a proper church school facility for the children of the parish. The new addition was realized and benefits the entire parish family, especially the youth, as the parish ministers to their Christian education and development.

Nathan Catanese, a young parishioner working on his Eagle Scout Project, raised funds for and commissioned a shrine to be dedicated to the memory of St. Raphael, the founder of the parish. It was blessed in a Service of Prayer at Nathan’s Eagle Scout Court of Honor in February of 2002. The area around the shrine was landscaped as part of another scout’s Eagle Scout Project and since then it has been maintained by the faithful of our community. Furthermore, the late Rt. Rev. Fr. John Namie presented his personal relics of St. Raphael to Fr. Donald Shadid and the Faithful of St. Mary. Today, the relics are held in the church and are venerated by the parishioners. The parishioners continue to intercede to their spiritual father to pray on their behalf. 

In July 2004, during the Special Convention of the Antiochian Archdiocese of North America, the delegates of the Archdiocese approved the formation of “Dioceses”, as opposed to “Regions” and St. Mary was placed in the newly formed Diocese of Oakland and all the East, located in Oakland (Pittsburgh), PA.

Liturgically, the parish has constantly sought to preserve the simple beauty of St. Mary while maintaining it and complementing it with additional iconography and furnishings. Within the last twenty years the parish has replaced items, repainted several areas, and commissioned icons and furnishings. Several projects, including the re-staining & varnishing of the Iconostasis, and the commissioning of life-size icons of Orthodoxy’s liturgists were completed in celebration of the Parish’s One Hundredth Anniversary. This grand event was properly commemorated in October of 2004, under the spiritual leadership of His Grace, Bishop Antoun. Additional iconography has recently been added to the nave (entryway) of the church. 

Since the time of Very Rev. Fr. Michael Saba Curry, St. Mary has been served by Rev. Fr. Andrew Nassir (1932-1935); Rev. Fr. John Saba (1936-1937); Rev. Fr. George Rawieheb (1937-1941); Rev. Fr. George Nasser (1941-1961); Rev. Fr. Athanasius Emmert (1961-1963); Rt. Rev. Fr. Gibran Ramlaoui (1963-1966 who was later consecrated Metropolitan of Australia & New Zealand); Rt. Rev. Fr. Alexander Curry (1966-1975, the son of Fr. Michael Saba Curry);  Rev. Fr. Joseph Shahda (1975-1983); Rev. Fr. George Geha (1983-1986); and our present spiritual leader, Very Rev. Fr. Donald Shadid, who was assigned to St. Mary in June of 1986.  

Parishioners of St. Mary have a strong background in the Faith, and over the last one hundred plus years, many have gone to help other parishes in the Archdiocese. In the early 1900s, many parishioners moved to Cleveland and Detroit and helped to establish parishes in those cities.  Later, parishioners continued to spread the Orthodox Faith around the United States by joining newer parishes and by helping to establish missions in Pennsylvania and other states. St. Mary has had a few of its native sons enter the Holy Priesthood: the Rt. Rev. Fr. Alexander Curry; the Rt. Rev. Fr. George Corry, the Very Rev. Fr. George Alberts; the Very Rev. Fr. Alexander Atty, and, most recently, Rev. Christopher Shadid, son of Fr. Don and Khouria Janet.

The parish recently celebrated 115 years of service to the Greater Johnstown area. It is the fervent hope of all within the St. Mary Parish Family to honor our founding members by maintaining the faith and dignity upon which the church was founded. It is also the prayer of the St. Mary community that Holy Orthodoxy will continue to flourish in the Conemaugh Valley.