The Temple
Greeks have lived in Great Britain since time immemorial. They originally came here as sailors and merchants, then as missionaries, later as mercenaries (especially after the Fall of Constantinople to the Turks in 1453) and subsequently as students during the long years of the Ottoman rule in Greece and the Greek Islands (1453-1821).
The first organised Greek Orthodox Community, however, was established in London in the 1670s, when a group of some 100 refugees, probably from Mani, led by a priest named Daniel Voulgaris, sought permission from the Church and State Authorities of England to create a Greek Orthodox religious centre in the heart of London. The permission was finally granted in 1677 to Archbishop Joseph Georgirines of Samos who had come to London to have one of his books published. A church was eventually built in Soho Fields, Soho, on a site offered by the then Bishop of London Henry Compton, and with money collected by Archbishop Joseph from various donors. This church, however, was confiscated without reason by the Authorities in 1684 and handed over to the Huguenots to the dismay of the Greek Archbishop who gave vent to his anger over this flagrant injustice in a pamphlet, a copy of which is now in the British Librar.