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Our Lady of the Annunciation Melkite Greek Catholic Cathedral in the West Roxbury neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts, is a modern cathedral inspired by Byzantine architecture. It is the principal church of the Melkite Greek Catholic Eparchy of Newton, which encompasses the entire United States, the seat of its hierarch, currently Bishop Nicholas Samra, and the parish church of the Melkite Greek Catholic community in Greater Boston. Its present structure and its status as a cathedral date to 1966; previous to that, Our Lady of the Annunciation Melkite Catholic Church was a parish church in the South End of Boston.〔''The Melkite Handbook: Introducing the Melkite Greek Catholic Church.'' Published by the Office of Educational Services, Melkite Greek Catholic Eparchy of Newton (2008)〕 ==Melkite immigration to Boston== In the 1890s, Christians from Syria and the Levant (now Lebanon) emigrated to the United States in search of better economic opportunities and to escape Ottoman rule in their homelands. Among the immigrants were Melkite Greek Catholics. Boston was among the northeastern cities in which the Melkites settled, attracted to it by opportunities in the city's garment district.〔〔''Melkites in America: A Directory and Informative Handbook.'' Published by the Melkite Exarchate (1971)〕 The majority of the Melkite immigrants to Boston, and elsewhere in eastern Massachusetts, hailed from in and around Zahlé in the Levant. As was typical in that era, they were soon joined by a priest dispatched from the region in which they originated. Thus, Father Joseph Simon, a hieromonk of the Basilian Salvatorian Order (BSO), which had responsibility for many of the parishes in Zahle, arrived in 1896. However, he remained only briefly in Boston, moving on to settle in Lawrence, Massachusetts, where the Melkites were more populous than in Boston.〔 Although both he and his Basilian successors, Father Philip Batal and Archimandrite Basil Nahas, periodically ministered to those in Boston, the community was anxious to have its own church and a permanently assigned priest. Since there was no Melkite hierarch in the United States at the time, they petitioned John Williams, Catholic Archbishop of Boston, who had canonical jurisdiction of them, to address their pastoral needs. The Archbishop, however, was unconvinced that their numbers were sufficient to support a priest or church and declined to act on the request.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Annunciation Melkite Catholic Cathedral (Roslindale, Massachusetts)」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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