The classical Greek appearance of St. George Church belies its Scottish origins as a Presbyterian church. In 1905, a new Presbyterian congregation, including Henry C. Wallace (editor of Wallaces Farmer and later to become Secretary of Agriculture under President Warren G. Harding) was holding services at Elmwood School at 31st and University. In October of that year, the church announced plans to construct a suburban church building at 35th Street and Cottage Grove Avenue.

Des Moines architects Proudfoot & Bird (now Brooks Borg Skiles) produced a design that The Des Moines Register described as "a pleasing combination of Doric and Roman styles." Groundbreaking for Elmwood Presbyterian Church occurred on May 10, 1906. Just six months and a day later, the $12,500 structure was dedicated in a fraternal service presided over by Rev. Charles S. Medbury of Drake University and a number of local ministers.

The St. George Church building retains much from its Presbyterian beginnings. Luckily for the Greek church, the Presbyterians chose a neoclassical design with Doric columns and a portico reminiscent of a Greek temple. The domed ceiling of the nave, a necessary element in any Orthodox church, was also part of the original plan. The pews were originally arranged in three sections with two aisles, but they still retain the brackets for communion wine glasses that are often found in Presbyterian churches of this era.

The arched stained glass windows also are artifacts of Elmwood Presbyterian. Landscape scenes representing the life of Christ fill the south windows, while the north wall depicts The Parable of the Sower (the theme of agriculture being dear to the Wallace clan). The window depicting the seed that fell on the rocky ground was donated by May Brodhead Wallace, wife of Henry C. Wallace.

Why does our church preserve so many artifacts of the original congregation, such as the windows?

When St. George Parish acquired the building in 1930, the parish chose to preserve the windows because they were a) beautiful, b) fit in with Orthodox theology, but most importantly, c) the Greek congregation wanted the people who originally built the church to be remembered.

The result is that the church building became very much a Greek Orthodox church building while preserving a strong connection to Iowa and to the Wallace and other families who originally founded and built Elmwood Presbyterian Church.

In 1926, the Elmwood congregation moved from this building, combined with First United Presbyterian and built the Beaver Avenue United Presbyterian Church (now Westminster Presbyterian Church) at Beaver and Franklin Avenues. Highland Park Baptist Church then moved into the building and renamed itself "Elmwood Baptist Church." Failing to attract a west side congegration, the Baptist church folded in 1930 and the building became, according to The Des Moines Tribune, "A Church Without a Congregation."

Upon moving into the building in late 1930, the Greek parish wasted little time in converting the building into an Orthodox church, immediately erecting the iconostasis, or icon screen. However, the direction the church building faced created a thorny issue because the altar of an Orthodox church is traditionally found in the east end of the church. The parish considered moving the facade to the building's west side but abandoned the idea because reversing the slant of the inclined floor was structurally and financially impractical. The icons that hang on the north and south walls date from 1946.

The church building changed more in the 1980s than it had in the previous five decades. In 1986, the altar space was deepened and the icon screen shortened, which provided a canvas upon which Greek artists painted an egg tempera platytera, or Holy Mother and Christ, replete with angels and the parents of the Virgin Mary. Also repainted was the dome painting of Christ Pantocrator, which replaced a version executed by a parish priest in the 1940s. (Note that the style of the church's earliest icons -- those on the iconostasis -- are influenced by the realism of Renaissance art, while the newest paintings show a return to traditional Byzantine iconography.)

What does the design of an Orthodox church building symbolize? How and why is it different from Western church design?

To learn more about Orthodox art and architecture and its relationship to Orthodox Christian theology, click this link to read Orthodox Art and Architecture, by John Yiannias, Professor Emeritus of the University of Virginia Department of Art. The link will take you directly to the article in a new browser window. The article is published on the Greek Archdiocese's website.

By 1981, the church needed more meeting space and considered building a new church in the west suburbs. The parish, however, voted to stay in the Drake neighborhood by adding a new fellowship center and converting the basement to Sunday School classrooms.

On March 16, 1997, St. George Parish celebrated an Ecumenical Doxology with Westminster Presbyterian Church to commemorate the placing of the church building on the National Register of Historic Places.