Saturday, 22 February 2025
Doltone House, Hyde Park
Her Excellency the Honourable Margaret Beazley AC KC

Bujari Gamarruwa

Diyn Babana, Gamarada Gadigal Ngura

In greeting you in the language of the Gadigal, Traditional Owners of these lands and waterways, I pay my respects to their Elders past, present, and emerging. I extend that respect to the Elders of all parts of our State from which you have travel.

Ministers representing the Premier and Prime Minister,^[1] Deputy High Commissioner representing His Excellency the High Commissioner of Cyprus,^[2] Councillor representing the Right Honourable Lord Mayor of Sydney,^[3] Your Eminence,^[4] Consul-General of Greece,^[5]

Last year, I had the extraordinary privilege of being part of the celebrations welcoming His All-Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, Archbishop of Constantinople and New Rome, on his visit to Australia to mark the centenary of the establishment of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of Australia.

I was equally delighted to receive an invitation to attend tonight, joining with you all in celebrating another significant anniversary, 50 years since the establishment of the Parish of Saint Sophia and Three Daughters.

Technically, it is a celebration we should have held last year—the Parish being founded 1974—but, with the excitement of the Patriarch’s visit and other centenary events—a postponement was necessary.

When it began, the Parish of Saint Sophia and Three Daughters initially held its services in the Paddington Methodist Church^[6], a building shared at the time by three different congregations. As a reporter of the time noted,

From 7 am to 10 am the Greek Orthodox community uses the church, then, after a burst of the exhaust fans to expel the incense, the combined Protestant congregation of about 40 move in. In the evening the church is given over to the Metropolitan Community Church.^[7]

That building is now the Paddington Uniting Church, with its famous Paddington Markets.^[8]

After several years, the Parish moved to its current home near Taylor Square, initially leasing the building before purchasing it in the 1980s from the Congregational Church.^[9]

Although unused for decades, the Parish’s new home had been a site of worship since the 1850s, with the formation of the Bourke Street Congregational Chapel in 1855, who erected a galvanised iron church brought out, in pieces, from Scotland.^[10]

Twenty years later, the Congregational “iron church” as it had become known, was proving “unattractive, uncomfortable, and greatly out of repair”^[11] and a new church in the Victorian Gothic style^[12] was built in its place, designed by William Boles and finished in 1880^[13].

The grand new church reflected the prosperity of its congregation, drawn from the affluent surrounds of “grand residences”^[14]. By the 1930s, however, with demographic change and the Great Depression, the church’s collection plate—its only source of funding—was receiving “no more than a few shillings” and could not afford the stipend for a regular preacher.^[15]

In a precursor to the legacy of community support, particularly for those less fortunate, we celebrate tonight, despite its financial woes, the Congregational Church still provided free meals—from donations collected in the Domain—to “more than a hundred unemployed men” every Sunday night.^[16]

Within several years of this, however, the Church’s decline could not be halted, and, in disrepair, it was shuttered up,^[17] not to be brought back to life until the Parish of Saint Sophia and Three Daughters moved in.

In doing so, another demographic shift was reflected—the move into Sydney’s inner-city suburbs, beginning with a trickle in the 19^th century and reaching a crescendo post Second World War, of Greek migrants.

They brought with them not only their culture—now intrinsic components of our vibrant Australian kaleidoscopic identity—but also their Orthodox faith. And with that faith, a love of family, tradition, and supporting community.

Of course, in tracing any history in terms of buildings, is to miss a—if not the—vital part of the story: that of the people.

And the people in this 50-year-long-story—the ones we celebrate tonight—are you, the clergy, the congregation, the volunteers, and supporters of the Parish of Saint Sophia and Three Daughters.

You have, and continue to, exemplify the highest values of supporting and celebrating community.

Whether through outreach programs such as your famous ‘Feed the People’, which, at three sites—at Saint Sophia, Martin Place, and, most recently, Eddie Ward Park—provide freshly cooked meals (over 30,000 annually!^[18]), or through the distribution of clothing and personal hygiene products to those in need.

Then there are your programs connecting people with each other, tradition, and culture: your PAREA Pa-ray-a seniors’ gatherings and excursions, your Greek dancing and language classes, and other cultural events.

And tonight, your credo of ‘putting faith into action’ is continued; our celebrations helping provide support for your vital, life-affirming, and community-building endeavours.

For all that, I offer the warmest of thanks and offer you my very best wishes as you continue to faithfully serve the Church, your congregation, and your local community in the decades to come.

[1] The Hon. Sophie Cotsis MP, Minister for Industrial Relations, and Minister for Work Health and Safety, Member for Canterbury, Parliament of NSW; the Hon. Tanya Plibersek MP, Minister for the Environment and Water, Member for Sydney, Parliament of Australia

[2] Mr Nikolaos Varellas, Deputy High Commissioner of Cyprus, representing His Excellency Mr Antonis Sammoutis, High Commission of the Republic of Cyprus

[3] Councillor Robert Kok, City of Sydney representing The Right Honourable the Lord Mayor of Sydney Clover Moore AO

[4] His Eminence Archbishop Makarios of Australia, Primate of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese

[5] Mr Yannis Mallikourtis, Consul-General of Greece

[6] David Haselhurst, ‘Divvying Up God’s Big Acres’, The Bulletin, 4 September 1976, p.36, available here

[7] “The Paddington Methodist church down the road has been put to good use with a ‘flea market’ for old wares dealers and homecraft makers conducted under cover in the church grounds. And greater use has been made of the church itself, where three separate congregations now meet. From 7 am to 10 am the Greek Orthodox community uses the church, then, after a burst of the exhaust fans to expel the incense, the combined Protestant congregation of about 40 move in. In the evening the church is given over to the Metropolitan Community Church, which claims to be the “gay” church and as such has aroused some controversy among the more conservative quarters of the church”: Haselhurst, ‘Divvying Up God’s Big Acres’, op. cit.

[8] The Paddington Markets were started a year before the establishment of the Parish Saint Sophia and Three Daughters, by a Methodist minister: Jonathin Foye, ‘Paddington Markets to Celebrate 50 Years’, Insights online, 22 March 2023, available here..

[9] ‘Our History’, Parish of St Sophia and Three Daughters website, available here

[10] ‘Fight for a Church that has Made History’, The Sun, 28 May 1933, p.6, available here.

[11] Rev Sydney Herbert Cox, ‘An Outline History of the Bourke Street Congregational Church, Sydney 1855-1925’, in Seventy Years: 1855-1925. Being a History of the Bourke Street Congregational Church, p.17, available here

[12] ‘Bourke Street Congregational Church and School (Former)’, State Heritage Inventory online, available here

[13] Cox, ‘An Outline History of the Bourke Street Congregational Church’, op. cit., p.18. The iron building was later moved to Stewart Street, Paddington, where it became known as Glammis Hall, and where it was used for “dances and entertainments”; purchased in turn by the Franciscans, it was used for 5 years as St Leonard’s, before being sold for use as a produce store and fuel depot: ‘History of St Francis, Paddington’, St Francis, Paddington, and St Joseph, Edgecliff  website, available here

[14] ‘Fight for a Church that has Made History’, op. cit.

[15] In an interesting inversion, at least from our perspective nearly a century later—the same reporter wrote of how Newtown and Surry Hills, suburbs once the height of fashion were now “unfashionable” and full of lodging houses, despair, and poverty: ibid.

[16] ibid. In the years 1932-1935, it was estimated that the Church gave out 20,000 meals: ‘Cut his Own Stipend’, The Daily Telegraph, 16 March 1935, p.14, available here

[17] “The [Congregational] church was closed in the late 1930s”: ‘Galston Uniting Church’, Sydney Organ website, available here. The article is about the organ which was donated to the Congregational Church in 1887, and then sold to the Galston Uniting Church when the Greek Orthodox Church moved in, the organ being superfluous to its needs.

[18] Information provided by Con Zannettides, President, Parish of Saint Sophia and Three Daughters.