Someone told me that the Annunciation Greek Orthodox Church in Wauwatosa, Wisconsin, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright and opened in 1959, was the first Greek Orthodox Church in America to have icons instead of statues.
That sounds way too late, and I’ve never heard of a Greek Orthodox Church with statues. What’s the straight dope?
i’ve not heard of any type of orthodox church built as an orthodox church having statues. sometimes if a church buys a church statues may be included in the sale it may cost to much to remove them.
there are greek catholic churches that are under the pope that may have statues and icons.
For what it’s worth, there is a prohibition in Orthodoxy against three-dimensionsl religious art, a longstanding tradition adopted in reaction against pagan Greel statuary and its sensuality. Any art to be reverenced as symbolic of the holy personage (saint, angel, person of the Trinity, etc.) it depicts is to be a flat, two-dimensional representation with specific symbolism (e.g., that hand gesture does not mean the saint is signaling ‘okay’ but is graphically demonstrating the two conjoined naturesof Christ, the other three fingers representing the three Persons of the Trinity). Checking the Archdiocesan website and parishes affiliated, I found none of them with specific references to icons existing prior to 1959, but there were buildings dating back to dedications in 1932, 1947, etc., and to the parishes having ‘historic’ icons.
It’s also worth noting that ‘Greek Orthodox’ is merely the largest (in America) of 22 autonomous Orthodox churches (Russian Orthodox, Serbian Orthodox, etc.), 16 of which have parishes in America.