Greek Community

History of london's greek community

By Jonathan Harris, Ph.D.


The Greek presence in London can be first discerned as far back as the early years of the fifteenth century. Two brothers, Andronikos and Alexios Effomatos, described in the surviving documents as "Grekes", were recorded as living in the city in about the year 1440. They were from Constantinople, what is now Istanbul, but which then was the capital city of the Greek-speaking Byzantine Empire. By 1440, Constantinople was a city under siege and only thirteen years later, in May 1453, it was captured by the armies of the Ottoman Turks. It is therefore likely the Effomatos brothers had probably come to London to seek a more secure life than could be offered by their home city.

In 1445, the king of England, Henry VI (1421-1471), granted the brothers permission to remain in London and to practise their trade of gold wire drawing. They made a costly type of thread in which thin strands of gold were intertwined with silk, and which was then used in expensive luxury fabrics and in sacerdotal vestments, a craft for which Constantinople had been famous in its heyday. Thanks to this royal grant, the brothers remained in London for many years. They lived first in the area of Cripplegate, much of which is now covered by the Barbican Centre, and later they moved to Broad Street, in what was then the Italian quarter of London. Andronikos, the elder, died in about 1472, but Alexios was still there in 1484, over forty years after his first arrival.

That set the pattern for Greek settlement over the next two hundred years. Some came as visitors for a short period. In about 1545, Nikandros Noukios of Corfu spent time in London and left an interesting account of his impressions. Nikodemos Metaxas, a printer by trade, worked in London for a time in the 1620s. Some came as refugees, seeking asylum or financial help as a result of misfortunes suffered under Ottoman rule. One of them was Gregorios Argyropoulos, the owner of an estate near Thessaloniki. When a Turkish soldier was accidentally killed on Argyropoulos' land, the Ottoman authorities held him responsible and forced him to flee overseas and eventually to London in 1633. A charitable collection was made for him in London churches, and he was presented with £48 before he departed the following year. A few individuals settled permanently, such as a native of Rhodes called Constantinos Benetos, who was recorded as living in Clerkenwell between 1530 and 1578. These visitors, refugees and occasional long- term residents did not, as yet, constitute a community. They were too few, too obscure and too transitory, and above all they lacked the one thing that would have given them cohesion and a common identity: a church where they could practise their Orthodox faith.

By the late seventeenth century, matters had changed somewhat. A number of Greeks now occupied prominent positions in London life. Constantinos Rodocanachi of Chios had become one of the physicians to King Charles II (163 I -I 685) (PI. 1). Georgios Constantinos of Skopelos had established the Grecian coffeehouse in Devereux court, just off the Strand, and could count Sir Isaac Newton and other members of the Royal Society among his clientele. Numbers had also increased. The expansion of Britain's overseas trade with the Levant brought many more merchant ships to the port of London, some of them crewed by Greeks. The time was therefore ripe to press for the establishment of a Greek Church.

The Rodocanachi family coat of arms

In 1674, therefore, a number of Greeks, led by a priest called Daniel Voulgaris, petitioned the Privy Council for permission "to build a church in any part of the city of London or the libertyes there of, where they may freely exercise their religion according to the Greek Church". Although the seventeenth century was a period of acute religious intolerance, the petition was favourably received. Many Protestant clergymen of the Church of England looked favourably on the Orthodox, because they too were at odds with the Pope in Rome. Accordingly, in January 1675 permission was granted and work began in August 1677. The driving force behind the project was Joseph Georgerinis, Archbishop of Samos, originally from the island of Melos. Georgerinis selected a location on the edge of the city in Soho, in what is now still known as Greek Street, and the small church was completed by 1681.

The location of Greek firms in 1839

Sadly this first venture was not a success. Georgerinis, presumably out of ignorance of the city, had chosen a site far removed from the areas where the potential congregation actually dwelt, while a number of scandals concerning the funds collected to finance the project brought it into some disrepute. In 1682 the Greeks sold the church, which was taken over by a congregation of French Huguenots. The building survived until 1934, when it was finally pulled down. The inscription, which commemorated its foundation in 1677, survived, however, and can still be seen in the cathedral of St Sophia. With the collapse of this venture, the Greeks of London henceforth worshipped at the Russian Orthodox chapel, originally established just off the Strand, and which later operated from sites in Burlington Gardens, Great Portland Street, and finally in Welbeck Street. During the first half of the eighteenth century, this chapel was served by the Archimandrite Gennadios (d.1737) from Cyprus, and by his nephew Vartholomaeos Kassanos (1697-1746).

A register was kept in Greek of the birth, marriages and deaths, which occurred among the community. Yet this church too had its problems. Most of the congregation, apart from merchants who came briefly to trade, were poor sailors and artisans who had little money to spare for the upkeep of the church. As a result, by 1753 most of the paint had peeled off the iconostasis and one of the priests declared that he expected the building to fall down at any moment.

During the early nineteenth century, however, matters were to change radically, largely as a result of events inside the Ottoman Empire. In 1821 the Greeks rose in revolt against their Turkish overlords. The Ottoman government responded savagely, in the hope of terrorizing the Greek population into submission. On Easter day 1821, the Patriarch of Constantinople and three Greek archbishops were murdered, and the following year a Turkish force descended on the island of Chios, which had joined the rebellion, and indiscriminately massacred or enslaved three quarters of its population. Faced with such acts of barbarity, many of the wealthy Greek merchants of Constantinople and Chios fled abroad, and some of them found their way to London (Pl. 2). Among the first to arrive were members of the Chiot Rani family, who established the firm of Ratti and Petrocochino at 25 Finsbury Circus in the early 1820s. In 1827 Alexandros Ionidis (1810- 1890) arrived from Constantinople and set up the firm of Ionidis and Co. Other families arrived in the years that followed, the Argenti, the Agelastos, the Schilizzi, the Rodocanachi, the Mavrocordato and the Scaramanga, to name but a few, and, to start with, most concentrated their business in Finsbury Circus and the surrounding area. They flourished on the importation of grain and oil seed from the Baltic and the export of finished textiles and manufactured goods to the Levant.

Coloured lithograph, Finsbury Circus, 1830

The Greek community had thus been transformed from an insignificant minority into an extremely wealthy and influential group. It had a recognized leader in Pandias Ralli (1793-1865), who, in 1835, was appointed as the first Greek Consul in London. Regular meetings of the community elders were instituted to decide matters of common concern. It was therefore only a matter of time before steps were taken to establish a separate Greek Orthodox place of worship. In 1837. a chapel dedicated to Our Saviour was set up in one of the houses of Finsbury Circus (Pl. 3), sharing the premises with Ionides and Co., and an Archimandrite called Dionysios Xenakis was brought over from Chios to officiate.

The chapel in Finsbury Square, however, was only a temporary solution and in 1843 Pandias Ralli proposed that a purpose-built church should be erected, funded by voluntary contributions from the Greek community. Rani did not make the same mistake as Georgerinis and chose a site at 82 London Wall, close to where many of the leading Greeks lived in Finsbury Circus. Designs were submitted by Athens architect Lysandros Kaftantzoglou (1812-1885) and the construction was overseen by Thomas Ellis Owen (1804-1862) of Portsmouth. When the church opened in January 1850, dedicated like its predecessor to the Our Saviour, it excited a great deal of at tention. This was partly because it was designed in Byzantine style, which was almost unknown in London at that time, but also because the £10,000 cost had been met entirely by a community of only a little more than two hundred people. The only note of criticism came from an anonymous correspopdent to The Times who claimed that the Queen's name had been spelt incorrectly in the Greek dedicatory inscription.

By 1870, however, the situation had changed again. The numbers of Greeks in London were no longer to be reckoned in hundreds, but in thousands. The wealthier families tended to move away from the old base in the City to the West End, particularly to Paddington, Bayswater and Notting Hill. Once again there was a need for a new church, and so in 1872 a committee, consisting of Demetrios Schilizzi (1839-1893), Stavros Dilberoglu (1818-1878) and Emmanuel Mavrocordato (1830-1909), was established to oversee the project. Work began in 1877, with the £50,000 cost being met by the Greek community. Again a Byzantine design was chosen, that of John Oldrid Scott (1841-1913). The new church of St Sophia, in Moscow Road, Bayswater was consecrated on 5 February 1882 by Antonios, Archbishop of Corfu.

In the years after the inauguration of St Sophia, many of the wealthier members of the Greek community became increasingly integrated into British society. An increasing number had been born in Britain and educated at public schools, particularly Harrow and Westminster. Some played a prominent role in public life. Pantelis Thomas Ralli (1845-1928) was MP for Bridport from 1875 to 1880, and Lucas Ralli (1846-1931), was created Baronet in 1912. Constantinos Ionidis (1833-1900) bequeathed his substantial art collection to the Victoria and Albert Museum, where most of the paintings, including works by Rembrandt, Degas, Delacroix, are now on public display. Emmanuel Rodocanachi (1855-1932) was a director of the Midland Bank. Theodore Mavrocordato (1883-1941) won the men's doubles at Wimbledon in 1921.

Yet in spite of this process of integration, the Greek community did not become an exclusive clan, restricted to its wealthier, anglicized members. A visitor to St Sophia's Easter Sunday service in about 1900 noted that at least half the congregation looked as if they were sailors, no doubt from vessels visiting the port of London. Nor did the members of the community forget their roots in Greece. The seaside villa of the Rodocanachi family at Worthing was named "Chios", in memory of their place of origin. Nicholas Vouvalis (1859-1918), having made his fortune in London, spent a great deal of it in providing a school, a hospital and an enlarged port for his native island of Kalymnos. Zorzis Michalinos (1868-1940), who founded the first Greek shipping company in London, donated a large house to the municipality of Chios, to be converted into a home for elderly people. In this retention of identity there can be no doubt that St Sophia, and the churches which preceded it, played a leading role, fostering a sense of continuity with the cen- turies-old Orthodox tradition.


From "Treasured Offerings: The Legacy of the Greek Orthodox Cathedral of St Sophia London" exhibition catalogue published for the exhibit that took place March 1-25, 2002 at the Hellenic Centre, London.

Byzantine and Christian Museum, Athens 2002. All rights reserved. ISBN 960-214-603-6

The catalogue, available in Greek and English, can be purchased from the Bookshop of the Cathedral of Saint Sophia (Divine Wisdom).