GREEK ORTHODOX CHURCH.
Following a
westward movement of Greek Orthodox families in
London, worshippers at the church of Our Saviour,
London Wall, moved to the church of St. Sophia
(Aghia Sophia), Moscow Road, on which work
started in 1877. Under statutes of 1879 the new
church was vested in trustees, representing the
Greek Orthodox Brotherhood of London. Cathedral
status was achieved in 1922, when the see of West
and Central Europe was created under the metropolitan of Thyateira, and reorganization assigned it
to the exarch of Western and Northern Europe in
1924. (fn. 36) There were Sunday attendances of 179 in
1886 and 141 in 1902. (fn. 37) The building, opened in
1879 (fn. 38) and consecrated in 1882, is an early example
of the Byzantine Revival style, designed in red brick,
to seat c. 700, by John Oldrid Scott. Not oriented, it
is on the plan of a Greek cross and consists of a short
nave beneath a central copper dome, with apsidal
sanctuary, transepts, and narthex. The interior is of
bands of brick and stone, richly decorated with
marble and mosaics. The mosaics covering the vaults
and dome, to a design by A. G. Walker, were completed in 1893. (fn. 39)
Footnotes
| 36 |
M. Constantinides, Greek Orthodox Ch. in Lond.
(1933), 61, 66-7, 85, 87, 91-2, 103, 106. |
| 37 |
Brit. Weekly, 26 Nov. 1886, p. 16; Mudie-Smith, Rel.
Life, 103. |
| 38 |
Paddington, Kensington and Bayswater Chron. 7 June
1879. |
| 39 |
Illus. Lond. News, 11 Feb. 1882; Pevsner, Lond. ii.
301; C.C.C., Clarke MSS. xv. 83; G. Stamp and C.
Amery, Victorian Bldgs. of Lond. 1837-87 (1980), 128-9;
above, plate 35. |